Who Says You Can't Go Home? (It's Alright, It's Alright)
by Imagination-Parade
Summary: When Cassandra Cillian gets word that her estranged father is ill, she finds herself returning to both the house she ran away from and the little town called Stars Hollow she ran away to.
1. Prologue

_I am so, so excited (and honestly a little nervous) to finally start posting this! I've been wanting to do a crossover with The Librarians and Gilmore Girls for over a year. Turns out, I just needed Season 3 of the Librarians and the Gilmore Revival to make this story really work._

 _If you know one but not the other, I think you could still enjoy this. I try to explain and describe everything, as I always hope to snag a few single-fandom readers when I write a crossover. That being said, if you can't tell from the summary, this is largely Cassandra's story, but there are plenty of Stars Hollow high jinks along the way, as I've worked almost all of my favorite characters from both shows into this._

 _This prologue here starts fifteen years in the past. We'll be back to present day at the start of the next chapter, with some flashbacks along the way throughout the story. If you're wondering where the flashbacks fit into the Gilmore timeline, I was envisioning that this prologue happens during the summer between Season 1 and Season 2._

 _And that's enough babbling from me, so I hope you all enjoy it :)_

* * *

 _Fifteen Years Ago – Stars Hollow, Connecticut_

The public bus pulled into the little town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, its door opening at the stop just next to the local high school in the middle of the town square. A young red-headed girl carefully climbed down the stairs, struggling a bit with the weight of the bags she carried with her. She had a messenger-style backpack crossed across her body from one shoulder and a large duffel bag crossed from the other, throwing her off her balance. She stood off to the side of the bus doors, a lost look on her face, as a few passengers, sure of their destinations and eager to get there, climbed off behind her. Before she knew it, the bus closed its doors and sped away, leaving her alone in this strange little small town.

Cassandra Cillian didn't know much about Stars Hollow. She'd never been there herself before, only heard the jokes her classmates and her parents' friends made about the quaint, eccentric, little place, but from what she'd heard, it seemed like a safe place to run away to, and a sixteen-year-old girl running away from home needed a safe place. She still wore her Hartford private school uniform, the one she'd put on for probably the last time that morning – white button-down shirt, red blazer with the school's crest, khaki skirt, and a red tie. She'd dressed it up a bit with some vintage pins and floral hair accessories, but looking around, she knew she didn't really _blend_ with the people here. She knew she was going to stand out. It didn't help that the outfit clashed with the large duffel bag slung across her shoulder – light pink, with a 60s floral print. Her mother had hated it, begged her to pick something nice and traditional, but her father had told her to pick any bag she wanted for her fifteenth birthday the previous year, because fifteen meant she was _finally_ going to get to go on the annual winter holiday to Europe with them. They'd gotten her a passport, still tucked neatly inside the bag, and she'd spent the time from her birthday to the winter break counting down the days, but Cassandra had never made it to Europe that winter. Nothing was turning out as planned.

Once the bus that brought her to Stars Hollow was out of sight, she realized she didn't really know what to do next. A worried panic bubbled in her stomach, and she took a deep breath, trying to fight the tears that had started to sting her eyes. One step at a time, she thought. She didn't have to figure out tomorrow; she just had to figure out where to go now. Looking aimlessly around the town square, she spotted a large yellow coffee mug, the name _Luke's_ written in red letters, outside of a…hardware store? Curiosity piqued, she hiked her bags up on her shoulders and walked over. Peering into the windows, Cassandra was able to determine the place was actually a diner, and her stomach rumbled. That's when she realized she hadn't had anything to eat that day except the ice cream her father had used to soften the bombshell they dropped on her after school. She wandered into the diner and took a seat at the counter, dropping her bags at her feet. She grabbed a menu, but she didn't have long to peruse it before a man walked over.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly.

Cassandra looked up at him with wide eyes. He wore a gray t-shirt, a flannel shirt, jeans, and a backwards baseball hat. In his hands, he held a small order pad, waiting for her to reply.

"Um…" Cassandra stuttered. "I'm not really sure how much money I have."

She had the credit card her parents had given her, of course, but she didn't want to use that. Not yet. She reached into the pocket on her blazer, her hands slightly shaking, and pulled out a small handful of cash and coins. The man sighed, thinking her to be just another dumb teenager wasting his time, and Cassandra picked up on that, her cheeks burning.

"Sorry! Hold on a…I really didn't think this through," Cassandra said, muttering that last bit to herself. Her hands shook a little harder and her eyes glazed over the large numbers on the bills she'd laid on the counter as she started trying to count the coins in her palm, as if only they would determine whether or not she would get to eat lunch. She counted slowly, willing her mind to stay on task and desperately hoping she wouldn't spiral into a hallucination in the middle of this little diner she'd found herself in.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his tone a little bit softer.

"Yes… _yes_ ," Cassandra said with a deep breath and a bit more confidence in the second affirmation. "I'll have a grilled cheese, extra cheese, please."

"You got it," he said.

" _Wait_!" Cassandra cried as he turned to tell the kitchen what she'd ordered. He turned back towards her. Cassandra spoke mostly to herself as she said, "That was a really little kid thing to order, wasn't it? Kids order grilled cheese. I can't…I can't be like that anymore. I…"

"Hey," he said, cutting her off. Her wide eyes wandered up to him again. "I'm bringing you the grilled cheese."

Cassandra smiled softly. "Okay," she said.

Instead of putting her order into the back, he himself wandered into the kitchen, and Cassandra, left alone at the counter with a whirlwind of thoughts, put the money back in her pocket and started playing with the beads on the funky bracelet wrapped around her wrist. Before too long, a woman walked in and sat with Cassandra at the counter, leaving one empty seat between them.

" _Luke_!" the woman called. She yelled his name again, making the "u" sound at least three syllables long, and Cassandra's eyes widened a little further. She'd never seen someone act like that in a restaurant before. "Okay, fine, if you're not here, I'll just have to _go behind the counter_ and get my coffee myself!"

At that, the man who'd taken Cassandra's order, Luke Danes, the owner of Luke's Diner, appeared from the kitchen. He grabbed a mug and the coffee pot, quickly passed by Cassandra, and set the mug down in front of the woman who'd yelled his name. As he poured, he brusquely said, "You will _not_ go behind the counter because you don't _belong_ behind the counter. It is _my_ diner. _I_ go behind the counter."

"Then you should _be behind the counter_ to take your customers' orders," she said.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Burger, no onions today, extra fries," she said. "A double order of fries. A triple order!"

"How about I bring you one order of fries and you stay on your side of the counter?"

"You're no fun!" she claimed.

"And you're going to die young if you keep eating like that," he said.

"There's that award-winning customer service," she said sarcastically, with a bit of a fond smile in Luke's direction.

Rather than respond, Luke simply returned to the kitchen. Cassandra had been watching the whole exchange, mildly fascinated. When Luke walked away, Cassandra turned back to her bracelet, but the woman beside her spotted Cassandra and gasped.

"Hey, I went there!" she said, gesturing to Cassandra's school uniform.

"You…you did?" Cassandra asked, mildly surprised that the woman was talking to her.

"Yeah," she said. "God, sixteen years, and they haven't done a thing to those uniforms. You feel like one of those cartoons. The ones where they wear the _same_ outfit every single day, in _every_ episode, year after year, to the point where you start wondering if the animators dress in the _same_ outfit every single day, too, and _if not_ , why do they make their characters do it? Those characters probably don't want their fashion sense stifled, but the damn animators just have to have their way. Well, the animators and the school board, am I right?"

Cassandra, a little stunned by the rambling and the fact that this woman was talking to her at all, looked at the woman with the same wide eyes that had become a permanent fixture on her face since arriving in Stars Hollow and then laughed. "Right," Cassandra said. The happy face she put on was a little bit of a show; the relief she felt at the woman's friendly nature wasn't. "I mean, I haven't actually seen many cartoons, but…that sounds accurate."

The woman grinned and looked at the accessories Cassandra was wearing and said, "At least you're making it your own. So what year are you? Hey, is Mr. Turner still there? I mean, he seemed too old to still be teaching when _I_ was there, but he also kind of seemed like one of those guys who was just never going to die, you know?"

At that, Cassandra swallowed hard as her face fell and tears began stinging her eyes again, the overwhelming nature of what she'd done and what she'd left behind overcoming her. Luke returned from the kitchen with Cassandra's sandwich just as a few tears spilled out of Cassandra's eyes and began rolling down her rosy cheeks. Embarrassed, she brushed them away as quickly as she could, but it was too late. Luke took one look at the girl silently sobbing at his counter and glanced over at her counter-mate, who was looking utterly shocked by the abrupt change in Cassandra's mood, with a scowl.

"What did you do to her?" he asked the woman by her side. Before she could answer, he turned to Cassandra and pointed to the woman. "What did she do to you?"

Cassandra shook her head immediately as she tried to fight back further tears. "Nothing," she answered. "She didn't do anything. She was just asking me about school, and…" A sob built up in her throat again and Cassandra finished with a heavy exhale as she said, "Everything is _so_ messed up!"

Sensing a conversation he didn't want to be a part of, Luke dropped the plated sandwich onto the counter in front of Cassandra and returned to the safety of his kitchen. Cassandra hid her face in her hands and tried to wipe away the new tears. She couldn't do this, she mentally told herself. _Kids_ cry in public. _Kids_ get upset and shut down. She stopped being a kid last winter, the moment the doctors told her what was buried deep inside the frontal lobe of her brain. She stopped being a kid the moment she snuck out of her house with no intention of going back.

The woman next to her moved over to the empty seat between them and gently placed her hand on Cassandra's back, trying to soothe her.

"I'm Lorelai," she said softly. Cassandra looked up at her. "Lorelai Gilmore."

"Cassandra Cillian," she said.

"How old are you, Cassandra?" Lorelai asked, glancing down at the bags near Cassandra's feet.

"Sixteen," Cassandra hiccupped as she composed herself. " _Barely_."

"What's so screwed up?" Lorelai asked.

"Everything," Cassandra said. She started talking a mile a minute, sounding surprised at her own actions, and she thought she saw Lorelai almost smile as she said, "I can't go back to school next year. My parents told me this afternoon, right after the year ended, and as soon as they left me alone, I just…I just left. I've never done anything like that before! They probably haven't even noticed I'm not home yet. Though it's not really home. Not anymore. They don't know how to deal with…I just don't know what to do now. I didn't think. I just _left_."

Lorelai sighed, glad she walked into Luke's when she did. Thinking she'd stumbled onto another teenage girl like her, she thought herself uniquely qualified to offer up advice. "Okay," Lorelai said with confidence. "Look, Cassandra, I know how you feel. _Believe me_ , I really do, and, you know, when I was in school, it was a huge scandal, but times are a little different now, and while it still won't be easy…"

"Wait. What?" Cassandra said, finally interrupting, knowing Lorelai probably couldn't possibly really relate. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not…" Lorelai started.

"Not…what?" Cassandra asked.

"Pregnant," Lorelai sighed.

Cassandra laughed at that notion. "A boy would've had to think of me as something other than the weird math girl for that to happen, so…definitely not pregnant," Cassandra told her.

" _Okay_ , wow, I really need to see a doctor about getting this foot removed from my mouth, huh?" Lorelai said. She waited a beat and then continued. "I have a kid about your age, so stop me if I'm getting too _mom_ on you, but what happened?"

"I'm sick," Cassandra said quietly. "Sort of. I have a non-malignant oligodenroglioma in my brain."

"And that's…?" Lorelai asked.

"A tumor," Cassandra said, still struggling to say the words out loud. "We found out about a semester ago, and my parents kind of…well, they make the medical decisions because I'm sixteen, and they're not making any kind of decision because they just can't process this, so school was kind of my refuge. You probably think that sounds crazy…"

Lorelai chuckled a little. "You should meet my daughter. She lives and breathes school. I get it. Go on."

"But now they've pulled me out of school, and they threw all my science trophies away, or…well, I don't really know what they did with them, but they're gone. They think I don't have a future anymore, but I think I do. It's…shorter. _A lot_ shorter, unfortunately, but it's not cancer, and it's _small_ ; the doctor said I probably have, like, twenty years. Potentially even a few more, maybe, depending…but I don't think my parents really heard that part, so I just, like, _left_ , and I don't want to go back, but I don't know what to do now," Cassandra said.

Silence hung in the air between the two for a few moments as Lorelai processed everything Cassandra had told her. As if she were making a decision, she exhaled heavily and called, " _Luke_!" Luke appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the diner. "Make my burger to go. Wrap her sandwich up, too."

"To go where?" Cassandra asked, the wide-eyed stare returning as Lorelai stood.

Lorelai smiled at her and said, "I think I might be able to help."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! I love reviews :)_


	2. Chapter 1

_I feel the need to spell out that this story takes place *after* the Gilmore Girls revival. You're not going to see much of Rory in this story, but there is a minor storyline in this fic that touches on those much-discussed four words the series closed on, so please consider yourself warned._

 _That being said, this takes place about 3-4 months after the revival and shortly following Season 3 of the Librarians, so we're in late February/early March here._

* * *

 _Fifteen Years Later – Present Day – Portland, Oregon_

Jacob Stone and Ezekiel Jones knew something was wrong as soon as Cassandra walked in that morning. Her wardrobe was bright, as usual, but everything else gave her away. Things had, thankfully, been quiet in the Library since they defeated Apep. The appointment book had sent them out on a few retrievals that had (mostly) gone off without a hitch; the Clippings Book had been quiet. Baird and Flynn finally left on that vacation he'd been promising her, and the others worked towards getting the Library reorganized and put back together, which was no small task after temporarily losing most of the artifacts to DOSA. Despite the calmness of their days as of late, Cassandra came flying in that morning, as if simply _walking_ was a burden on her time. She nearly threw her bag onto the desk she usually claimed as hers, instantly scurrying through the Annex to reach the section of the Library she had been working on, only offering a brief and chipper "Morning!" as she walked by her fellow Librarians.

The men shared a look at her unusual behavior. The last time she'd acted overly perky…well, they didn't really want to think about that. They'd both blamed themselves in that New York hospital waiting room. They had spent that entire day with her – they should've known, they should've asked more questions, they should've been better. They didn't want to make the same mistake again, but she was out of their sight just as quickly as she'd come into it, and they silently agreed to let her be for the time being. As the morning went on, they didn't see much of Cassandra, but when one of them did come across her, they noticed that while she was bubblier than ever, she was a little more scattered, a little more clumsy with the books she carried from place to place, and the light they usually saw shining in her eyes was dimmed.

Stone wanted to ask her if she was alright, but he already knew she wasn't, and he didn't want to pry. Maybe she wasn't feeling well; it hadn't been _that_ long since her surgery, after all. Maybe she was scared a normal headache was turning into something more. Maybe she'd just had a bad weekend. Either way, he held back, hoping she would eventually seek one of them out. Ezekiel had a different idea, of course, coming into Stone's work space after just a few hours to suggest forcing Cassandra into a low-key brunch outside of the Annex, somewhere where she couldn't hide behind books or bury her feelings in misplaced artifacts, somewhere where she'd have to sit and talk to them. Stone's refusal was forming on his lips when he realized that while Ezekiel's vocalized intentions might not be the best, a change of scenery might calm Cassandra down or boost Cassandra's spirits, whichever she needed more, so instead, he nodded.

Finding her was easy; they knew what she'd been working on, and despite catching her in an empty aisle, they looked around to make sure they really were alone. Cassandra sat on the floor, sorting through artifacts, a protective circle of treasures and information around her. Stone sat down across from her, and Ezekiel stood behind Stone, Cassandra's research and artifacts separating them from her.

"What's going on, Cass?" Stone asked her.

"What are you talking about?" she replied with a smile.

"Something's wrong; we can tell," Ezekiel said.

"No, nothing's wrong," she insisted, her speech quick. "I'm fine. Never better!"

Stone sighed quietly to himself but decided not to press any further. "Ezekiel wants to go out. Do you want to come? We're leavin' in a few minutes."

Cassandra shook her head. "No thanks. I can't stop. I have way too much to do here," she said, pointing to the things around her. Ezekiel opened his mouth to argue her refusal, but Stone beat him to responding.

"Okay, well…want us to bring somethin' back for you?" Stone asked.

She shook her head again. "I'm really not hungry. No time to be hungry. This Library isn't going to put itself back together!"

"Cassandra," Ezekiel said, his voice softer than the frustration he'd felt just a few moments ago.

"What?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"You know we recognize this, right?" Ezekiel asked.

"Recognize what?" Cassandra asked.

"The manic to cover up what's really going on," Stone said.

Cassandra froze for just a moment before she shook her eyes with those same wide eyes and said, "There's no manic."

"Last time you acted like this without caffeine…you haven't had caffeine, right?" Stone asked, deciding to check.

She laughed. "Nope," she smiled. "Don't need it."

"Yeah, last time this ended with you in the hospital and the rest of us blind-sided!" Ezekiel finally said.

"Sorry if we're buggin' ya, but I don't want this to end there again," Stone said.

"It won't. It's not me. It's…" Cassandra said. She abruptly stopped talking, realizing what she had just let slip, and cringed.

"It's who, Cassie?" Stone asked.

She finally stilled, and they watched her just breath for a few moments as she looked at them. After a few moments, she admitted, her voice soft but even, "My mother called this morning. She never calls, but Dad's heart…he's in the hospital. She said the cancer's back and something about surgery. I didn't even know…they're not sure he's going to make it," Cassandra revealed, ending her admission with a small, forced smile. Stone and Ezekiel didn't know what to say, her heavy confession having caught them off guard, so Cassandra filled the silence. "They were older when they had me, but they were always supposed to outlive me, you know? I've never even _considered_ the possibility that they wouldn't."

"We had no idea," Ezekiel muttered, suddenly feeling bad for pushing the issue.

"I'm so sorry," Stone said, matching Cassandra's hushed tone. She shook her head quickly before looking off to the side, almost embarrassed to look directly at them. "So are you going to…" he started, then realized he wasn't sure where she had grown up.

"Connecticut. Hartford. No," she said, waving her hand. "No. It feels like a whole lifetime ago since I've been there, and this is stupid, but I don't know if I could walk back in there anyway, since that's the hospital where…" Cassandra trailed off again, vaguely pointing to her own head. "There's a lot of history there."

"Yeah, but he's your dad," Stone said.

"Yeah," Cassandra said. She took a deep breath. "But I made my choices. A long time ago. They did, too."

"What does that mean?" Ezekiel asked. Cassandra shrugged.

"It means it's just too late," she said, matter-of-factly.

Stone joined Ezekiel for brunch anyway, but when they returned, Stone caught her alone again. She'd been working on that section of the Library for a week with probably at least that long left to go, but when he found her, within just a few short hours, she had almost finished. She was straightening the books on the shelves, shifting the spines and stepping back to make sure everything was aligned just so, when Stone walked up beside her. He touched her arm gently to get her attention, and she yelped in surprise, having been lost in her own little world. When she looked over at him, her hands still on the books in front of her, he held up a boarding pass with her name on it for a plane to Hartford. When her eyes ascertained what she was staring at, they widened and darted up to meet his.

"What did you…" Cassandra started.

"I bought you a ticket," Stone said. "Thought you'd appreciate the time to think instead of the Back Door just throwin' ya into it."

Cassandra shook her head. "I can't," she said, going back to her task. "I hope you can get your money back. You really shouldn't have done that."

"I didn't get to see my mama before she died," Stone told her. Cassandra's hands froze in place, and even though she wasn't looking at him, Stone knew she was listening intently. "I tried, but…I didn't make it in time."

"Jacob, I'm so sorry," she said, looking at him with empathy. "But…"

He cut her off before the argument could go any further. "Go," he said. "If this is really it, it ain't gonna matter what's happened between you. He'll want to see you, too."

"But there's so much to do he…" she started, looking around the Library.

He cut her off with a simple stating of her name. Cassandra's face sobered, and she swallowed, thinking about what he had said to her. She reached towards him, hesitated, and then completed the motion, grabbing the ticket from his hands.

"Are you really gonna go?" he asked, skeptically. "Or are you just takin' that for appearances?"

"I'm really gonna go," she whispered. "He always came to see me when he heard I was in the hospital. Just…just in case."

"Good," Stone nodded. He grinned a little and added, "And if you get out there and find you need some support, we're just a text away. It's not like there's much going on here."

"So why don't you just come?" she muttered. Realizing what she'd said, she looked at him instantly and amended her request. "You don't have to _come_ come," she said, the pace of her speech quickening again. "I mean, come to Connecticut, but you can stay in the house…or the hotel…or wherever we end up staying. You can go to museums; you don't have to go to the hospital and get in the middle of all that. You just seem to have some experience with this sort of situation, and my mother's not going to make it easy, and I'm obviously not very good at processing things because you saw right through me this morning, and I _could_ go alone, but…"

"You don't want to," Stone finished for her. Cassandra nodded.

* * *

"You're going _where_?" Ezekiel asked after Stone told him they'd be gone a few days.

"Connecticut," Stone clarified. He made a face and added, "C'mon, man, you don't know where Hartford is?"

"I _know_ ," Ezekiel argued. "And I know why _she's_ going, but why are _you_ going?"

"Moral support," Cassandra sighed.

"I could come, too," Ezekiel offered.

"You want to come wait for me to get back from hanging out in a hospital all day?" Cassandra asked. "That would bore you…"

"To _tears_ ," Ezekiel finished. "But I'd do it."

"That's really sweet, Ezekiel," Cassandra started. Before the idea could be explored any further, Jenkins wandered in.

"Excuse me for eavesdropping, but did I hear something about Connecticut?" Jenkins asked as he saw both Cassandra and Stone gathering their things.

"I need to go home for a few days," Cassandra said. "My dad's sick, and Stone talked me into going to see him. He was going to go with me. Is that okay?"

"Of course," Jenkins said. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Cassandra said with a small nod and an unconvincing smile.

"Miss Cillian," Jenkins said sternly. "What did we say about the lying?"

"I'm not lying, Mr. Jenkins. I just don't know much yet," she said. "I'm not really in the loop with what goes on in my parents' lives, but I guess I can't really complain about that, because they don't know much about me, either."

Jenkins looked at Cassandra, a sympathetic expression on his face, and said, "Please do tell me if something changes, or if you need anything. Anything at all."

"I will," Cassandra promised. She walked over to where he stood, raised herself onto her tip toes, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

"I could still come, too," Ezekiel offered again.

"On the contrary, Mr. Jones," Jenkins said, his gaze finally slipping from Cassandra.

"What?" Ezekiel asked.

"Colonel Baird and Mr. Carsen are on vacation," Jenkins said. "Now Mr. Stone and Miss Cillian will be otherwise engaged as well. You have to stay here and hold down the fort. Handle any magical emergencies that might come up."

"But…" Ezekiel protested. He pointed towards Cassandra. "Nobody was here when _she_ was in the hospital!"

"But we were all accessible," Jenkins pointed out. "As much as it pains me to say this, you, Mr. Jones, are now the Librarian in charge." Stone's face hardened, and he glanced at Cassandra as if he were reconsidering his trip to Hartford. Cassandra stifled a giggle.

"Fine," Ezekiel sighed, plopping down into a chair.

Jenkins walked over to the globe by the Back Door and began readying it for a transport. He turned to Cassandra and asked, "Where to, specifically?"

"Oh no, um…we're flying," Cassandra said.

Ezekiel rolled his eyes and looked at Stone. "I know we said no magic, but _really_?"

Cassandra, having had the same thought upon seeing the plane ticket, simply stifled another giggle.

* * *

Across the country, at the Hartford airport, another reluctant traveler was making her way up to security, her mother in tow. Mother and daughter stopped just outside of the security checkpoint, and Rory Gilmore reached over and dug her passport out of her carry-on before taking the bag from Lorelai's hands.

"You didn't have to come all in the way into the airport with me," Rory said. "You didn't have to drive me at all."

"Yes, I did," Lorelai said. "Parking charges are legal robbery, and do you know what would've happened if we had called a _real_ Uber instead of Kirk's ridiculous bicycle service?"

"Probably nothing since the car wouldn't have gotten anywhere near Kirk," Rory said.

"Please. He's everywhere, and that car with the little Uber logo in the window would've had to drive you all the way through the town square to get from our house to the highway, so even if Kirk himself hadn't seen it, someone would have, and then you, me, and probably even Lorelai the Fourth in there _never_ would've heard the end of it," Lorelai said.

"Lorelai the Fourth?" Rory asked.

"Yeah," Lorelai shrugged.

"So not only have you decided it's a girl, you've also decided her name is Lorelai?" Rory sighed. Lorelai said nothing in response and simply shot her daughter a look as if to say ' _obviously_.' Rory sighed again. "Kirk couldn't have taken me 30 miles on his bicycle. Not in any sort of timely manner, anyway."

"When has logic ever stopped Kirk from doing anything?" Lorelai asked.

"It wouldn't have been _that_ bad," Rory said, folding her arms across her chest.

"Rory, honey, do you not remember witnessing the _twelve minute lecture_ about how I'm a small business owner, and Kirk's a small business owner, so therefore, I should support his small business and take his stupid Ooober in 23 degree weather instead of driving my car between the Dragonfly and Luke's and other such short distances around town?" Lorelai said. "Because that is not an experience I care to repeat, so here we are."

"Well…" Rory muttered.

"You're stalling," Lorelai said.

"Yes, I am!" Rory admitted.

"You don't have to go," Lorelai said seriously. "You can do this by phone or email or text or carrier pigeon. There are a myriad of communication options, both modern and not so modern, that do not include flying to London to tell Logan about..."

"Lorelai the Fourth?" Rory finished.

"Exactly," Lorelai (the Second) said.

"No," Rory said, shaking her head. "I have to do this in person."

"Okay, well, you know, I'm here, and _oh_ , _what's this_?" Lorelai said, reaching into her purse. "My passport? I could come, too!"

"So that drive came with an ulterior motive," Rory frowned.

"Take Mommy to London!" Lorelai called.

"You can't come with me," Rory said. "Kirk might have ripped off three more businesses by the time I get back. You don't want to miss that."

"You sure you're gonna be okay, kid?" Lorelai sighed.

"I'm sure," Rory nodded.

* * *

As Rory Gilmore was boarding a plane to London, Stone and Cassandra were well on their way to the East Coast. Cassandra took the window seat and curled up into it, leaning against the side of the plane. Stone marveled a bit at her ability to look comfortable in a small airplane seat, but he also worried about her. She couldn't expend any of her nervous energy while stuck on a plane, so she spent most of the first half of the flight silently staring out the window, even though the landscape was growing dark, and there was nothing out there to see. Her hair fell against her face, and not quite sure she was even awake, he whispered her name softly. She turned to look at him right away.

"Sorry, just…," he stuttered. Cassandra nearly instantly moved to put her head back on the side of the plane, so he asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"You won't like what I'm thinking," she said.

"You can say it anyway," he promised.

"I always thought my parents and I would sort everything out when I was on _my_ deathbed. I was going to call them when we got back from that case with Estrella, but…well, you know what happened there," Cassandra admitted. "I don't know what to do now that Dad might be first. It was always going to be me. It was never a question. Unless something sudden or completely accidental happened, it was going to be me."

"Cassie…" he muttered with a grimace.

"I _told_ you…" she started.

"I know," he muttered again.

With a bit of a grin, she said, "I know you all hate hearing things like that. Only Ezekiel could handle tumor talk, and even then, only to a point, and he still covered it up with humor, but statistically…that's what was likely to happen."

"I know, but I ain't ever heard you talk about it so bluntly before," Stone said.

Cassandra shrugged. "Easier to talk about when it's no longer true, I guess."

Silence fell over them again, and Cassandra's head fell back onto the side of the plane. She focused on the steady mechanical noise of the aircraft piercing the air outside and fell back into her thoughts, letting a warm glow of numbers and calculations surround her. After a few moments, she realized Stone was talking to her again. She looked back over, blinked herself back to reality, apologized, and asked him to repeat what he'd said.

"Can I ask about your dad?" he asked. She sat up a little again and nodded. "You mentioned cancer being back."

"That's what I was told," Cassandra confirmed.

"Brain cancer?" Stone asked. Cassandra looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if asking him to think about what he'd just said. "I know that's not what you had."

Cassandra laughed lightly to herself, feeling a little guilty for stealing a laugh at his expense. "People hear tumor and just assume," Cassandra said. "But I doubt it. Cancer tends to be fast when it's there."

"So what's your dad got?" he asked.

A sudden melancholy fell over Cassandra as she leaned her head back against the cold wall of the plane. She shrugged slightly and revealed, "I have no idea."

* * *

By the time the taxi pulled into Cassandra's driveway, it was _late_ , just after one o'clock in the morning in Connecticut, and Cassandra pulled her suitcase out of the trunk, muttering about how she was going to be in trouble before she even stepped foot inside just because of how late she'd be ringing the bell. Stone couldn't offer up any sort of response because he was transfixed by the house – no, the _mansion_ in front of him. There was a full-sized fountain in the center of the driveway, its base made up of three stone horses and surrounded by a circular, neatly tended-to garden. The car had pulled through a wall with elaborate turrets on either side of the stone path to reach the house itself; they were going to have to cross under a triple white archway with curved tops and Grecian columns to lead them to the front door. The home itself had seven ornate windows just on the front of the second story. The ground level looked long enough that someone could get lost in there.

"Cass…Cassie…where's the _garage_?" he asked, looking around the property.

"Around back," she said, pulling her jacket against her body to shield her from the frigid night air.

"But how do you get there? This driveway don't go anywhere," he said.

"The real driveway's with the garage," she said. "You have to use the side entrance."

"There's a _side entrance_?" he asked.

"It's by the tennis court on the road around the corner," she said.

"How many bedrooms are in this place?" he asked.

"Seven," she said. She pointed to the left side of the ground level and said, "Except that wing was not there last time I was here, so maybe eight now."

"Your parents built onto a house with seven bedrooms?" Stone asked.

"My mother always hated that the house was _lopsided_ , as she put it," Cassandra said. "She wanted the left side of the house to match the right, at least from the outside." She looked around, tilted her head a bit, and added, "The symmetry now is rather nice. I would've _never_ told her this, but it actually used to bother me, too, you know…mathematically."

"Your parents built onto a house with _seven bedrooms_?" Stone asked again.

"Well, they saved so much money on college tuition!" Cassandra said with sarcastic enthusiasm. She started walking towards the front door, rolling her suitcase behind her and Stone followed slowly. When they reached the front door, she took a deep breath, knocked, and muttered, "Brace yourself."

A young woman in a maid's outfit opened the door just a few moments later, and Stone's face furrowed into another look of disbelief. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Really? She's got you up and working this late?" Cassandra asked instinctively. Switching gears, she said, "Hi! I'm Cassandra. I'm sorry it's so late. Time change, you know."

"Cassandra?" the maid asked.

"Their daughter," Cassandra clarified.

"I'm sorry, who…" the maid asked. The girl looked terrified, not knowing what to do.

"Tom and Connie's…" Cassandra started. Upon the girl's still vacant look, she groaned and looked around the room. She pointed to a family picture hanging on a wall just inside the front door and slipped past the maid, scurrying over to it. "Here, see?"

Cassandra scrunched up her shoulders and put on a beaming smile, her eyes squeezed shut. Stone wandered slowly over to the same wall to find a picture of little Cassandra wearing a birthday crown, making the same overjoyed face in front of a pink unicorn cake. Adult Cassandra deflated her smile almost instantly, the genuine nature of the glee in the picture long left in the past, and she caught Stone grinning out of the corner of her eye.

"Never thought I'd smile like _that_ in this house again," Cassandra muttered. She looked at the maid, who was still simply standing there, the front door still wide open. "Where is my mother?" Cassandra asked.

"Carlita, what's wrong?" a woman's voice called from the other room. "Who was at the door? What's taking so long?"

" _Oh no_ ," Cassandra muttered, her eyes suddenly wide again.

"You mother?" Stone asked.

" _No_ , no, that's…" Cassandra started.

Before she could finish, a well-dressed woman with perfectly done hair appeared in the foyer. She looked a little startled upon seeing just who had been knocking on the Cillian home's front door, but she composed herself quickly.

"Well…Cassandra," the woman said, a hint of surprise evident in her voice.

"Mrs. Gilmore," Cassandra said nervously, smiling out of expected pleasantry.

"Did Lorelai bring you?" Emily asked.

"Uh…no," Cassandra said, brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would Lorelai…?"

"She was dropping Rory at the airport tonight," Emily said. "I thought she might have gotten you, too."

"Taxi," Cassandra said, pointing towards the still open door, the now empty drive, and the still scared maid standing by the front door.

"Carlita, it's okay, let them in," Emily Gilmore said. "And my goodness, don't just stand there with the door open. It's freezing out there; you have no idea what could come crawling inside looking for warmth."

Carlita, the maid, quickly closed the door. With a brief nod, she left the entranceway. Emily turned to Cassandra and Stone again.

"Thanks," Cassandra said. "Where's uh…where's Mom?"

"She's at the hospital," Emily said. "There was a….well, I'll let her tell you."

"There was a what?" Cassandra asked.

"I don't have any details," Emily said. "We were having drinks by the fire, and she got a call. Did she know you were coming? She didn't mention it."

"She doesn't know," Cassandra said. "But, you know…Dad."

"Yes, I understand," Emily said.

"This is my friend Jacob," Cassandra said awkwardly, gesturing to Stone. She quickly added, "We just work together."

Stone held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mrs.…Gilmore, was it?"

"Yes, pleasure," Emily said, accepting his handshake. She turned to Cassandra again. "You look well, Cassandra. You're doing well?"

"Um…yeah," Cassandra said with a nod and, Stone recognized, a genuine smile.

"That's nice to hear," Emily said.

"Thank you," Cassandra said. Silence lingered, the situation growing more awkward by the second. "So, um…it's been a really long flight and an even longer day with…everything, so I think we'll just go upstairs. If you see my mother, can you tell her I put Jacob in the guest room that overlooks the main pool?"

"The _main_ pool?" Stone whispered.

"The one next to mine," Cassandra clarified further.

"Your room or your pool?" Stone asked.

"Is that okay?" Cassandra asked Emily, ignoring Stone's questions. "Are you staying…I heard you moved…"

"I'm in the white room. I'll tell her about your arrangements," Emily promised.

They exchanged goodnights, and Cassandra and Stone grabbed their bags and started up the stairs. Stone trailed slowly behind Cassandra, admiring the interior architecture of the place and feeling a little intimidated by the wealth radiating from the home. Once she reached the second floor, Cassandra turned around and found him still on the landing, looking at both of the floors he was standing between. She left her suitcase at the top of the stairs and jogged back down to meet him.

" _Stone_ ," she hissed quietly so Emily wouldn't hear. "Are you okay?"

"You come from _money_ ," he replied.

"Yes," Cassandra said.

"It's just…" he said, not quite knowing how to word how awkward he felt even standing in a home like this one. He looked at her, and Cassandra worried he was suddenly looking at her differently than he had before they stepped foot on this property.

"I feel just as out of place here as you're feeling right now," Cassandra assured him.

"Do _you_ have any of this money?" he wondered.

"A little," Cassandra admitted. "The last of my trust fund is probably going to go to paying off that surgery."

"Trust fund…what happened to the rest of it?" he asked, knowing it must have been a sizeable amount if it came from the family that owned a home like this.

Cassandra sighed. "Medical bills and keeping me out of this place," she said. She spoke much quicker as she added, "And, you know, Nordstrom's; now can we _please_ go upstairs before Mrs. Gilmore wants to talk some more?"

"She seemed nice enough," Stone whispered.

"It's not that," Cassandra said, almost frantically. "I didn't even know she and my mother were still friends after…there's a lot of history there, too, okay?"

Stone nodded and followed her up the stairs. She pointed to a door further down the hallway and told him that was hers, or at least it was when she'd lived here. She pointed to the first door at the top of the stairs, on the same side of the hallway as hers, and told him he could stay in there.

"The _main_ pool?" he asked again.

"I'll give you a tour in the morning," Cassandra promised. "Go to bed."

Stone nodded and disappeared into the guest room designated as his. Cassandra heard him whistle as he turned the light on; she shook her head slightly. This environment was a lot for her to take in. She couldn't imagine seeing it through his eyes. She turned to the closed door of her childhood room and hesitantly grabbed the twisted gold knob. With a small exhale, she opened the door and flipped on the light.

She thought it might look just as she'd left it when she climbed out the window at barely sixteen – books folded open on the desk in the corner, clothes her mother hated hanging out of the drawers – but it didn't. The "Great Women of Science" poster still hung above her desk, and the costume jewelry she'd loved still hung from the necklace stand on her dresser, but the disarray she'd left things in had been cleared. Cassandra briefly worried that everything was gone, a worry she immediately chastised herself for. She hadn't needed that stuff when she left or in the fifteen years since she'd been in this bedroom. It didn't matter what they'd done with it. As she walked around slowly, running her fingers over furniture edges and peering into closets and drawers, everything appeared to be there, neatly arranged, as if the room was waiting for that sixteen-year-old girl to return.

Her eyes stopped wandering when she spotted the folded piece of lined pink paper sitting on the nightstand by her bed. She knew instantly what it was; she'd left it standing on the base of her bedside lamp before she climbed out the window, but other than the fact that it now lay flat, it was exactly where she'd left it. Her slender fingers shook slightly as she snatched it up, opening it up to find her own teenage scrawl, ink smudged here and there, indicating the places where the tears long since dried had landed on the page.

She wandered again to the end of her bed as she quietly read the few simple sentences she'd written to tell her parents she had left and wasn't coming back. With a sigh, she let the paper fall shut around the finger hooked into the fold. Cassandra looked around the room with the same expression on her face she'd always had when looking at MRI scans, the only time her mind was truly silent, and sunk down on the little bench in front of her neatly made bed.

* * *

Downstairs, just a little while later, Connie Cillian came through the side door, the one used when coming in from the real driveway. Emily Gilmore still sat by the fire, a long-emptied drink in her hand.

"Connie," Emily gasped, standing to meet her friend. "Is everything alright?"

"For now," Connie said. "I'm so sorry for running out on you at dinner."

"Don't be silly; I understand," Emily said. "I just wish you had let me come with you."

Connie shook her head, making herself a drink. "You didn't have to stay up."

"I didn't want you to come home to an empty house. That's why I'm here, remember?" Emily said. "Though it seems that wouldn't have been a problem."

"What?" Connie asked as the women took a seat back on the couch.

"Your daughter is upstairs," Emily revealed.

"Cassandra?" Connie asked, her eyes looking towards the direction of the stairs. "Cassandra hasn't been here since…"

"I know, but she's here," Emily said. "With a handsome man she claimed to work with."

" _Cassandra_ brought a…" Connie said with a disbelieving laugh. "What man?"

"She introduced him as her friend Jacob," Emily said. After a beat of silence, she added, "She looks really well, Connie."

"How long have they been here?" Connie asked, looking towards the stairs again.

"Just about an hour or so," Emily said, checking her watch. "They went up to bed, _separate_ beds, because it'd been a long flight. Connie, where is she living now that she'd have a long flight here?"

Connie sighed, her attention fixated on the direction of the stairs in her home. In a small voice, she admitted, "I have no idea."

A short time later, Connie and Emily both made their way upstairs to retire to bed, too. Connie hesitated as she walked past Cassandra's closed door, instinctively reaching for the knob. The doors often remained closed in their house; nothing really looked any different, but the knowledge that Cassandra was actually behind the door twisted in Connie's stomach as she tried to walk by. It'd been so long since her daughter had been sleeping inside that room – it'd been so long since her daughter had been inside her house, period – she thought she just needed to see it for herself.

At the risk of waking her up, Connie slowly turned the knob and carefully opened the door. The sliver of light from the hallway illuminated the room just enough for Connie to see Cassandra sleeping in her childhood bed in a fuzzy sweater covered in pastel stars. She noticed that Cassandra's arm was curled underneath her thick pillow, holding it protectively to her head, and tears nearly sprung to Connie's eyes at the sight. She'd started sleeping that way as a teenager, after stumbling to bed with bleary eyes and headaches worse than Connie knew she could probably ever even imagine. With one last glance at her daughter's sleeping form, Connie let out a forlorn sigh and pulled the door shut behind her.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you've got a few seconds to spare :)_


	3. Chapter 2

_From here on out, every chapter's going to begin with a flashback to teenage Cassandra's life in Stars Hollow (or shortly before.) This particular flashback happens directly before the prologue of this story, and each flashback will be set in italics to set it apart from the rest of the narrative._

 _Thanks for the feedback so far :)_

* * *

 _Cassandra stormed into the house, arms crossed against her chest, tears pooling in her blue eyes. Her father was hot on her heels; her mother completed the parade home, lingering just a bit behind the rest of her family. Thomas Cillian called out his daughter's name._

 _"No," Cassandra said, shaking her head, determined to keep her voice strong. "No, you're not taking me out of school. You can't do that."_

 _"Honey, we have to," Thomas said. "They've had to call an ambulance during AP Calculus four times this semester. That's disrupting to the entire class."_

 _"That won't happen next year! I'm taking an independent study for math, remember?" Cassandra reminded them. "The school doesn't offer AP Calculus II, but Mr. Frederick said he'd use his planning period to teach it to me."_

 _"It's not just Calculus, Cassandra," Connie said. "You know that."_

 _"She's right. There's Physics. Art. Your English teacher said you started talking about pancakes when answering a question about the symbolism of a number in a novel the other day," Thomas said._

 _"I can control it," Cassandra said, her voice shaking._

 _"You can't," Thomas said._

 _"Yes, I can!" Cassandra cried. A few tears slipped from her eyes, and she hurriedly brushed them away. "I'll learn how. I have all summer to figure it out."_

 _"Sweetheart," he said. Cassandra simply let out a pained sob in response. Her father calling her 'sweetheart' in situations like this had always gotten to her, and she didn't want to think of them as anything other than the enemy right now. He continued, "Sweetheart, it's beyond your control."_

 _"The visions or what happens with school?" she asked._

 _"Both," he said, firmly, the decision already made._

 _"But then what?" she asked with another sob, realizing she was fighting a losing battle. "If I don't finish school, what can I do? What am I supposed to do?"_

 _"When you calm down, we'll figure out what to do with the rest of your time," Thomas said. Cassandra inhaled sharply._

 _"The rest of my time?" she said through tears, her voice sounding as if just hearing those words from her father broke her heart._

 _"My god, Tom, did you have to say it like that?" Connie said._

 _"I shouldn't have said it like that," Thomas admitted._

 _"You can't do_ _this!" Cassandra screamed, rage bubbling inside her again. She turned around and strode into the living room. When she looked up from wiping the new tears out of her eyes, she froze immediately, her arms falling to her sides as she scanned the changed shelves around the fireplace. "Where's my stuff?"_

 _"Your stuff?" Connie asked._

 _"My stuff, my awards, the trophies," Cassandra said. "Did you put it all in my room?"_

 _"Cassandra!" Connie called as her daughter started upstairs._

 _Cassandra walked into her bedroom to find the accolades that had resided in there gone as well. She spun around, her long, curled hair whipping against her red cheeks. "What did you do?" she asked._

 _"We thought…we thought it might too hard to see…" Connie started._

 _"You got rid of them?" Cassandra asked, her voice cracking in a heartbreaking way. "Everything I've ever worked for?"_

 _"They'd be a painful reminder," Connie said._

 _"Of what?" Cassandra asked._

 _"Of a part of your life that's over now," Thomas said._

 _"No, you think my whole life is over!" Cassandra cried. In a calmer, more sure-of-herself manner, said, "You think it doesn't matter what I do now because I'm gonna die."_

 _"Cassandra, please," Connie said upon hearing those words from her daughter's mouth. She rubbed her own forehead, a headache brewing._

 _"This doesn't mean I just stop. Not yet. Why are you trying to make this defeat me already?" Cassandra asked, adding frustration to her upset._

 _"Because that's not a fight any of us are going to win, Cassandra," Thomas said bluntly._

 _"Go away," Cassandra cried, retreating into her bedroom. "Just leave me alone."_

 _"Cassandra," Thomas said, reaching for her._

 _"Go away!" she screamed._

 _Her parents backed off, and she slammed the door, like any sixteen-year-old would, and sunk to the floor as she let the hysterics overtake her, painful sobs shaking her body._

* * *

Cassandra woke up slowly the morning after arriving in Hartford, blinking herself awake as she remembered where she was and which of her beds she was sleeping in. She looked over at the clock still ticking on the wall next to her bed. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw the time until she remembered her body was in Connecticut, but her brain was still on the West Coast. Her next thought was of Jacob in the room next to hers, and she silently hoped he was just as jet lagged as she was, and he hadn't gone introducing himself to her mother without her.

She dressed quickly and slipped out of her room, knocking lightly on Stone's door. When she didn't get an answer, her stomach dropped and she opened the door slowly, her head peering around the corner of the door.

"Stone?" she said.

"Out here," Stone called.

Cassandra shut the door behind her and found him on the balcony, looking around the estate in awe. "Oh my god, _thank you_ for staying in here," she sighed. She curled her arms around her body and said, "What are you doing?"

"You _grew up_ here?" Stone asked. Cassandra nodded. "This family money or self-earned?"

"Both," she said.

"This place is just…"

"Over-indulgent and ridiculously extravagant?" Cassandra answered.

"You can't _ever_ bring Jones here," Stone laughed.

Cassandra laughed. "I _know_ ," she said.

Stone grew quiet and looked around the estate again, taking in the scope of the place. "You're gonna be _loaded_ someday," he muttered.

Cassandra looked confused at first, then stunned as the realization that she was the only one out there for her parents to leave all of this to hit her. Her eyes widened. "I didn't think I'd live long enough for that to matter," she said honestly. "Anyway, um…rain check on the tour? I slept too late."

Stone nodded and followed her out of his guest room. He knew she talked to her parents every now and then, though he'd come to realize in the past 24 hours that their conversations couldn't be very substantive. He asked her how long it'd been since she'd seen her mother, but Cassandra didn't get to answer him as they found the woman in question sitting impatiently in a chair right at the bottom of the stairs, as if she were waiting for her daughter to come down them. She wore navy blue pinstripe pants and a white blouse; she looked like she was heading to an office instead of a hospital, and Stone briefly wondered if that's exactly where she was going. Her makeup was impeccable, her red hair neatly tied into a bun. While not a carbon copy, Cassandra had her mother's bone structure, and Stone would know just by looking at them that they were mother and daughter.

"Mom!" Cassandra gasped, startled by her unexpected presence at the bottom of the stairs. Connie looked up at her. There was a flash of emotion across her face for just a moment before her expression settled back into one of utter annoyance.

"Well, I was beginning to think you were going to sleep all day," Connie said. Stone frowned; that wasn't much of a greeting.

"Yeah, sorry, um…I'm a little jet-lagged," Cassandra said, trying to take the high road.

"Are you going to introduce me to your friend, or are you just going to let him stand there?" Connie asked.

"Mom, this is Jacob," Cassandra said. She turned to Stone. "This is my mother, Connie."

"Constance," she corrected.

"How about I just go with Mrs. Cillian?" Stone asked.

"That's probably your safest option," Cassandra muttered.

"You have a beautiful home, ma'am," Stone said. "Thank you for letting us stay here."

"Yes, well, I don't have much of a choice when I come home from the hospital to find someone's broken into my house, now do I?" Connie said.

"I didn't break in," Cassandra said. "I knocked. Mrs. Gilmore let us in. You're still friends with Mrs. Gilmore?"

" _She_ didn't keep you from us," Connie said angrily.

"Lorelai _didn't_ …okay, you know what…" Cassandra said. Her words started emotionally charged, but she stopped her rebuttal before she could really get started. "No. Um…is it okay if we continue to stay here?"

"You've already taken over two of my guest rooms, so why not?" Connie sighed.

"Mine isn't _really_ a guest room since it looks pretty much how it did when I lived in it," Cassandra pointed out. Connie stood from her chair and started walking towards the side entrance. Cassandra looked a little surprised. "Where are you going?" Cassandra asked.

"I wanted to be at the hospital _an hour ago_ , Cassandra," Connie said.

"What was stopping you?" Cassandra asked.

"I'm assuming that's why you're here, so I was waiting for you to wake up," Connie said. "There's no need to return rudeness with further rudeness, after all."

Cassandra and Stone shared a look. Cassandra closed her eyes and did a little shake of her head as if to say _oh yeah, she really just said that_. Stone raised his eyebrows and slowly nodded his own head. Five minutes, and he had a pretty clear picture of what this particular dynamic was like.

"Are you coming?" Connie called back.

Cassandra sighed, rolled her eyes, and turned to Stone. "You don't have to come."

"Do you not want me to?" he asked her.

"This is the epicenter of messy family stuff. I don't want you to feel like you have to."

"Cassandra, _now_!" Connie yelled from across the house.

"I think you need a buffer," Stone said honestly.

" _Thank you_ ," Cassandra sighed.

* * *

When they arrived at the hospital, Cassandra's mother didn't notice the little falter from her daughter as they approached the hospital's entrance, nor did she offer any words to the new arrivals as she walked straight to her husband's room. He was in one of the larger rooms in the hospital wing; the door was shut, but the blinds on the window were open, letting them see inside. Connie stood stoic at the window, looking at the man in the bed before them. Cassandra's mouth dropped open slightly, her fingers coming up to press against the glass.

"Is he asleep or unconscious?" Cassandra asked quietly.

"Asleep," Connie said. "I hope."

"What's going on, exactly?" Cassandra asked.

"I told you on the phone," Connie said.

"No," Cassandra said, shaking her head. "You said something about cancer being back, which tells me nothing, since I was never told he had cancer, and then you said something about his heart, which, again, tells me almost nothing."

"I told you all I know," Connie insisted.

"You _have_ to know more than…" Cassandra said, her temper waning. She stopped herself again, sighed, clenched her fists, and then quietly and carefully slipped open the door to her father's room.

"What are you doing?" Connie hissed at her.

Cassandra swiftly grabbed the chart hanging off the end of her father's bed and brought it back out to the hallway, glaring at her mother as she took a seat in one of the chairs across from the windows. She crossed her legs and balanced the chart on her knee. Stone sat down next to her, while Connie wandered into the hospital room to sit by her husband's bed.

"You gonna be able to make sense of that?" Stone asked quietly as Cassandra flipped the chart open.

"I don't know," Cassandra admitted. "But _that_ clearly wasn't getting me anywhere," she added, gesturing towards her mother. She flipped through the pages, simply scanning words rather than actually reading them. "Looks like lung cancer," she said. She paused for a moment before fixing her eyes on a spot on the floor. "That's the leading cause of cancer deaths."

"But your mom said _back_ , so that means he beat it once," Stone reminded her.

"Yeah…" Cassandra whispered, not convinced.

She had settled on a sheet covered in numbers and grew quiet; Stone assumed she was trying to comprehend what she was looking at. Soon, he realized she wasn't looking at the paper anymore and instead, looking at numbers only she could see. Her eyes rapidly moved back and forth, as if she was watching a butterfly or a bird fly around in front of her face, and finally, she grimaced.

"Off," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. " _Off_ , off!"

"Cassandra?" he asked with concern.

"I'm fine. I'm not fully used to that yet," she said quietly, her hands spread wide to indicate the scope of her new abilities. Stone nodded. She closed the chart, stood from her chair, and held it close to her chest. "I think I'm just going to find a nurse or someone to talk to."

* * *

Thirty minutes away in a town called Stars Hollow, Emily Gilmore walked into the Dragonfly Inn. Her daughter, the inn's owner, was behind the check-in desk sorting through the day's mail. Lorelai didn't notice Emily's arrival, so when Emily walked up to the desk and said her name, Lorelai screamed, clutching the envelope in her hand in a death grip.

"I hate it when you do that!" Lorelai yelled.

"Well, you didn't seem to have the slightest idea what was going on around you," Emily pointed out.

"What are you doing here?" Lorelai asked.

"I was in the area…" Emily started.

"From _Nantucket_?" Lorelai asked.

"No, from Hartford," Emily said.

"What are you doing in Hartford?"

"Can I please have lunch with my daughter without being subject to an interrogation?" Emily sighed.

"Sure," Lorelai shrugged. "We have to stay here, though. I have an interior designer coming in an hour."

"For the new annex?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, we're getting things started," Lorelai said as she made her way around the desk.

"I could sit in, you know," Emily offered.

"No," Lorelai said. They started walking towards the restaurant.

"Lorelai, I'm an investor in this property," Emily reminded her.

"Yes, you are," Lorelai nodded. "No."

"But…" Emily rebutted again as they sat down at an open table in the dining room. Lorelai sat down across from her and shot her a look. "You're right. You know what you're doing."

"Thanks, Mom," Lorelai said with a smile. "So, seriously, what are you doing in Hartford? Who are you staying with?"

"A friend," Emily shrugged.

"What friend?" Lorelai asked. "I thought you alienated all those DAR ladies when you called their lives bullshit. Kudos on that, by the way. I've never been so proud!"

"Lorelai," Emily sighed.

"Who are you staying with?" Lorelai asked again.

"Connie, if you must know," Emily said.

"Connie _Cillian_?" Lorelai asked in disbelief.

"Yes, do you have a problem with that?" Emily asked.

"No, no problem," Lorelai insisted. "I just didn't know you even still…"

"Connie blames _you_ , Lorelai, not me," Emily said.

Lorelai half-rolled her eyes and said, "So what? You came over from Nantucket to have slumber parties and talk about what a collective disappointment your daughters are?"

"No, Lorelai," Emily said on a sigh. "Tom is in the hospital. I offered to come over and stay with Connie because I know how hard it can be to come back to an empty house when you're going through something like that."

"Oh, well, that's very nice of you," Lorelai said. "What's going on?"

"His cancer's back, and now the treatments are causing heart problems, too," Emily told her. "It's not good. It's a terrible thing to watch your husband go through something like that in general, but after all that hospital time with Cassandra…I imagine just being in the building is traumatizing."

"Yeah," Lorelai agreed with a nod.

"Have you heard from Cassandra lately?"

"Not for a while," Lorelai said.

"Interesting," Emily said with a mischievous smile. Lorelai frowned.

"What is that face?" Lorelai asked.

"What face?" Emily asked.

"You have the 'I-know-something-Lorelai-doesn't-know' face," Lorelai accused.

"I have no such face," Emily said, dropping the little smile.

"Is she okay?" Lorelai asked.

"Oh, I imagine she's just fine," Emily said. She picked up the menu. "So what chef do we have this week?"

* * *

"We could've gone out for a real lunch, you know," Cassandra sighed, taking a seat across from Stone in the cafeteria. She'd found him there after getting the full story on her father's health.

"You were busy; I got hungry," Stone concluded.

"Sorry," she said. "I found his oncologist; we ended up talking for longer than I anticipated."

"So what's going on?" Stone asked.

"Lung cancer," she nodded. "The first time was caught early and relatively easily beat, but it came back three times as strong. They put him on chemo and radiation, and now…now he has cardiotoxicity in the form of cardiomyopathy on top of the lung cancer, and they're not sure what will kill him first."

"Cassie," he said, a little unnerved by her frank speech.

She paused for a moment and sighed. "I'm sorry."

Stone shook his head. "I'm just worried about you," he said. "Cardio-what?"

"Toxicity, heart problems caused by the radiation therapy, and cardiomyopathy, which makes it hard for the heart to pump blood," she explained. "He had surgery yesterday, but the condition typically leads to heart failure or…needing a transplant."

"Can he…?" Stone started.

"They put him on the list, but…he's old. He's not going to be a priority candidate."

"And that's happenin' cause of the treatments?" Stone asked.

Cassandra nodded. "Radiation can do some really awful things," she said quietly. At that, she folded her arms one on top of the other on the table. Her head fell forward, forehead resting on her forearms. Stone stayed still for a minute, thinking she was going to pop right back up. When she didn't, despite his _many_ questions, he simply leaned forward.

"Cassandra?" he asked softly.

"This is _weird_ ," she muttered, her head still on the table.

"I know," Stone said. "We always think parents are invincible."

"No, not that," Cassandra said, sitting up. "This is selfish. Being here is weird. This is one of the two buildings in existence that completely changed my life," she said, looking around the room. She paused for a moment and said, "Well, okay, so this _building_ didn't really change my life, not like the Library itself actually changed our lives, but…I could show you the exact room four floors up from here where they told us about the tumor. I still remember the room number and everything. You get off the elevator, make a right, and it's six doorways down."

"I don't really know what to say," Stone admitted. "Except…that's all behind you now."

Cassandra nodded. "I think that almost makes being back here weirder."

When Stone finished eating, the two wandered back down to her father's room, where an alarm was blaring and nurses were rushing in. Cassandra gasped and raced forward, stopping in the doorway. Her father was clutching his chest, but he was awake.

"Dad!" Cassandra cried.

Thomas Cillian's eyes met his daughter's, and he whispered the first half of her name before he fell back against his pillows, losing consciousness. Cassandra tried to move forward, but a doctor rushed both her and her mother out of the room. Cassandra's worry turned to anger, and she crossed her arms against her chest, glaring at her mother, who immediately began staring through the window outside the room.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Connie asked.

"He was awake," Cassandra said.

"Yes," Connie said.

"He was awake, and you didn't think to text me and tell me that?" Cassandra asked.

"Please, Cassandra, I think we all know I can't do anything about it when you decide to disappear," Connie said.

"This is not like that, and you know it!" Cassandra cried with a stomp of her foot. She looked through the window to see the doctors trying to resuscitate her father and shook her head. "Stone," she called.

"Yeah," he said, coming up beside her cautiously.

"I don't think I can be here anymore," she said quietly.

"Okay, let's go," he said.

"Am I supposed to call you back here this time?" Connie asked.

"Like I trust you to do that," Cassandra sneered, walking away.

* * *

They returned to the Cillian house after checking in with the help desk on her father's floor and requesting a call if he were to wake up again. The car dropped them off at the front door, and Carlita let them inside.

"So," Cassandra said in a peppy tone, clapping her hands together. She pivoted towards Stone with a little twirl on her toes. "How about that tour?"

"We don't have to do that, Cassie," he said.

"Yes, we do. I promised," Cassandra said. "There's a whole wing even I haven't seen! Like you said, this place has seven bedrooms; what could they have possibly needed to build over there? Plus, there's art all over this house. You'll love it; come on!"

Deciding to indulge her, Stone let her lead him around her parents' home. He marveled at the vastness of it all, but she was right; he did appreciate the art, and it was everywhere. There were large paintings above every fireplace they encountered and one behind the piano that Cassandra told him no one even knows how to play, but there were a lot of pictures, too. Cassandra, in a red school uniform. Cassandra, with trophies taller than she was in elementary school. Cassandra, with the pink unicorn cake, on ice skates, and swimming in the backyard pool. It'd be sweet, he thought, if it weren't so unsettling.

All the pictures of Cassandra were from when she was fifteen or younger. There were a few old family pictures scattered around in frames, too, and a few of her parents in recent years, but they were mostly just Cassandra, and as he wandered through the home, he began feeling like he was looking at the memories of parents who really had lost their child when she was only a teenager. Then the voice belonging to the woman twice as old as the most recent photographs would ring out in the silence, and he'd be reminded that she was still very much alive. She just didn't have a presence _here_.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"You're everywhere," he said. "Kid you, anyway."

"Yeah," she said, looking around the room herself. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and said, "I'm kind of surprised these are all still up."

"It's weird," he admitted.

"Because they're all so old?" she asked, feeling it, too.

He nodded. "It's like you're…"

"Yeah," she whispered, not wanting anyone to say the words out loud.

"It's…" he started. He trailed off when he realized he didn't know what else to say.

"Eerie," she finished, with a bit of a frown.

"What's in there?" he asked, changing the subject, nodding towards the door they were lingering outside of.

"My dad's office," she said. "Nobody but him ever really goes in there. He never let Mom in. I was allowed sometimes, if I promised to be quiet. Do you want to…?"

"Only if you do," he said.

She slowly opened the door and turned on the light, illuminating the well-furnished office. The walls directly across from them were lined with books, and, as Stone wandered over to check out the titles, he found a whole shelf with books that must have belonged to Cassandra. He pulled out a well-worn science textbook and found her excited scribbly handwriting in the margins. Cassandra slowly pulled out the chair and sat down at the desk, her fingers lightly running along the edge. Stone turned around to check on her, but what he caught out of the corner of his eye turned his attention in another direction.

"What is _that_?" he laughed.

"What?" she asked. He nodded at the wall opposite them, just next to the door they'd come through, and her eyes widened. "Oh my god."

On the wall, across from her father's desk, was a huge framed oil painting of little Cassandra, in a full equestrian outfit with pink riding boots and matching pink ribbons in her braided hair, on a pony. Cassandra mouth fell open as she wandered over to inspect it closer.

"I've never seen this before," she said. "He must have commissioned this after I left."

"That's an actual painting, Cass," Stone said.

"I see that…" she mumbled.

"How old are you there?"

"Um…six?" she guessed. "Seven?"

"And you had a _pony_ , too?" he asked.

"No!" she said, turning to look at him. "No, I just took riding lessons. I always wanted a pony of my own, though."

"Of course you did," Stone teased.

Cassandra stared at the painting for another moment and sighed. "Give me a minute?" she requested. "Just a minute. Then we can get our coats, and I'll show you around outside before it gets too dark."

Stone nodded and left the office, shutting the door behind him. Cassandra looked up at the painting again, touching the edge lightly, just to be sure it actually was a painting. She didn't even want to know how much he'd paid for that. With a small, sad sigh, she tore her eyes away from the painting and pulled her cell out of the pocket on her skirt, just to make sure she hadn't missed any calls. She hadn't, so she slid the phone back inside and reached for the office door.

* * *

"I can't imagine you growing up here," Stone said as they walked around outside.

"Why not?" Cassandra asked.

"Because everything is so formal and polished, and you're…well…" Stone trailed off and simply gestured to her outfit. She was wearing a button-down shirt with a loud, floral pattern, a yellow skirt, and a dark purple vest: the antithesis to what her mother had chosen to wear that day. Cassandra laughed.

" _Spirited_?" she offered. "I think that was the word they used when they really meant pain in the ass."

"Did they treat you like you were a pain in the ass?" he asked.

"No," Cassandra said instantly, shaking her head. "Mom, sometimes, but that was just normal mother/daughter stuff. Like those pink riding boots…I wanted the pink ones. Mom wanted me to get black. Dad kicked us out of the store because he said we were embarrassing and causing a scene, and he would take care of it. He came out with the pink ones."

"That was nice of him," Stone smiled.

"Yeah," Cassandra grinned. Her face fell as she said, "And now he's gonna die without ever knowing I was here."

"He knows you're here," Stone said. "He saw you. He knows." Cassandra nodded slowly, her mind in some faraway place. Stone hesitated for a moment before he said, "You're all over this house, Cassie – the pictures, and they haven't touched your room. I don't really know what I'm asking, but this isn't what I expected. And not just 'cause of the money."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You guys are so estranged, and your mom was kinda hostile right off the bat, but…I gotta father who doesn't love me. His house don't look like this."

Cassandra nodded, a lump forming in her throat. "Love was never the problem. Not really," she said. She tapped the side of her head. "It was this. This changed everything."

"It tore you apart," Stone said.

"Sort of," Cassandra said. "I didn't like their choices or their idea of what my future would be, and I realized I was going to have to actually stand up to them and not just kind of pretend to like I normally did. Pre-diagnosed Cassandra never would've snuck out her bedroom window, I can tell you that."

" _That_ window?" Stone asked. He turned them around and pointed at the second-story balcony he knew was hers.

"Yeah, that window," she said with a nod "I climbed over to your balcony there, and shimmed down…the tree that used to be there that they have apparently gotten rid of." She started laughing at that, dissolving into near-hysterical giggles, rebellious pride getting the better of her, and Stone couldn't help but laugh, too.

"And you never came back?" he finally asked.

"Until now," she confirmed.

"So when did things get so bad between you guys? The diagnosis?" he asked.

"Um, no, no, not really," Cassandra said. "That was definitely the beginning, but I think the real point of no return was probably when I sued them."

Stone's head quickly turned to look at Cassandra. He was getting a little used to the blunt talk and the casual bombshells, but that one still threw him. "When you…when you _what_?"

"It's a long story," Cassandra sighed. "I kind of had to."

Stone could tell she clearly didn't want to go into details, so he quickly tried to change the subject. "So this is the main pool, huh?" he asked. "Want to show me the other? Others? It ain't others, _plural_ , is it?"

Cassandra smiled. "No, it's just one other," she said. She nodded her head. "C'mon."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you've got some time :)_


	4. Chapter 3

_Lorelai Gilmore stood on the front side of the reception desk at the Independence Inn, helping the newly checked in guests that a very bored Michel Gerard behind the desk had brushed off. She finished answering their questions, waited until they walked away, and then turned around to glare at Michel. Before she could say anything, however, Cassandra came running through the lobby._

" _Bye, Lorelai!" Cassandra called. "Thanks for letting me go early today."_

" _Yeah, no prob…_ whoa _," Lorelai said, grabbing Cassandra's arm as she passed._

" _What's wrong?" Cassandra asked._

"What _are you wearing?" Lorelai asked._

 _Cassandra stood before her in a gray skirt, a polka dot blouse, and a professional gray jacket. She had her hair done up in a bun and enough makeup on her face for at least three women._

" _I'm going to court," Cassandra said._

" _I know where you're going," Lorelai said. "Come here. Michel, hold down the fort for a few minutes, and don't make anyone cry, please!"_

" _No promises," Michel muttered as Lorelai dragged Cassandra to the ladies' bathroom._

 _They entered the thankfully empty bathroom, and Lorelai pointed to the counter. "Sit," she said. Cassandra slid onto the counter. Lorelai reached behind her and started taking her hair out of the bun._

" _What are you doing?" Cassandra squeaked. "That took forever! I don't have time to…"_

" _When's the hearing?" Lorelai asked._

" _Three," Cassandra said._

" _It's 12:30," Lorelai told her. "Plenty of time."_

" _But…" Cassandra stuttered._

" _Honey, you look like you're forty with this getup," Lorelai said._

" _That's kind of the point," Cassandra reminded her._

" _They know you're not forty," Lorelai pointed out. "Don't try to look it."_

" _I need to look older, so I can win," Cassandra said softly as Lorelai smoothed her long, red curls around her shoulders."I want the medicine."_

" _You're going to win. You're going to get the medicine," Lorelai said. "You got this makeup in your bag there?"_

 _Cassandra nodded and pulled out a handful of beauty products. Lorelai set them all on the counter and went to work removing the makeup Cassandra had put on herself. That same distraught look she'd worn the day Lorelai met her in Luke's Diner returned, and Lorelai pulled her hand away._

" _Are you okay?" she asked._

" _I'm suing my parents," Cassandra said. "What kind of person sues their parents?"_

" _The kind of person who's found herself in a terrible situation," Lorelai said sympathetically, returning to the task at hand._

" _But I'm going to lose," Cassandra said. "The judge is going to make me go home, and I've just made everything worse."_

" _Don't think that," Lorelai said. "Why do you think that?"_

" _Because there's not a judge in this county that doesn't know my father. My court-appointed lawyer is no match for him, even if family law isn't his specialty."_

" _Hey," Lorelai said. "Look at what you've done so far. You filed the papers, you got a lawyer, you passed the DCF investigation_ and _the court-ordered mental evaluation. You've got letters from your neurologist and me to back you up. You're going to win, and hey, seeing your parents in the court room, that's got to be scarier than some silly judge anyway, am I right?"_

" _Thanks for that last part," Cassandra said sarcastically._

" _Forget the last part, and focus on the rest of it," Lorelai said. She picked Cassandra's makeup off the counter and started reapplying it. "It's going to be fine."_

" _Maybe," Cassandra sighed._

" _Do you want someone to come with you?" Lorelai asked. "I could go, or I'll let Marcie have the afternoon off. She's not scheduled to do anything she couldn't do tomorrow."_

" _And having to explain my relationship with Marcie to my parents in this particular setting would make things better_ how _?" Cassandra asked, her lips threatening to curl into an almost amused grin at the mere prospect._

" _Okay, maybe not," Lorelai agreed._

" _No," Cassandra said, shaking her head. "I'm an adult. I don't need anyone."_

" _You're sixteen," Lorelai said._

" _Yeah, but…I'm trying to make a court make me an adult today, so no. If I can't handle a hearing alone, I don't deserve to be emancipated," Cassandra said._

* * *

When Connie Cillian came down for breakfast the next morning, she found her daughter sitting at the dining room table, dressed and ready to go. Startled by the younger woman's presence, she gasped and asked what she was doing up that early.

"Well, I don't want to keep you from the hospital," Cassandra snidely replied.

"You want to go back to the hospital?" Connie asked. "You left in a bit of a huff yesterday."

"I got overwhelmed; can you blame me?" Cassandra asked.

"I guess not," Connie agreed, her tone softer.

"So yes, I want to go back," Cassandra said. "Someone didn't give me the opportunity to really see him yesterday."

Connie sighed. "Well, you're on your own, dear, because I have to go talk to the lawyers, and his office is asking for an official statement, and god only knows how long all of that's going to take." She grabbed a banana from the center of the table and said, "Go whenever you'd like."

* * *

Over in Stars Hollow, Lorelai sat at the counter in Luke's Diner, flipping through a book the interior designer she'd met with the day before had left her. The book contained plans and ideas for the interior of the Dragonfly's soon-to-be-opened annex. Lorelai reached the final page just as her husband walked over to refill her coffee mug.

"Bah!" Lorelai said as she flipped the book closed.

"What?" Luke asked her.

"I don't like it," Lorelai said.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It looks so boring," Lorelai groaned.

"It _looks_ like the Dragonfly," Luke pointed out.

"Yeah, but this isn't the Dragonfly. This is the Dragonfly _annex_ ," Lorelai reminded him. " _This_ looks like a country inn, which is what the Dragonfly is, but don't you think the annex should be a bit more happenin'?"

"In Stars Hollow?" Luke asked

"It's right in the middle of the town square, almost!" Lorelai said, pointing out the window of the diner in the direction of her newly-acquired building. "It should have more of an upscale vibe!"

"In Stars Hollow?" Luke repeated.

"Yes, in Stars Hollow," Lorelai sighed.

"It's Stars Hollow, not New York City," Luke said.

"Oh, where is it, again? I can't remember," Lorelai replied sarcastically.

"You don't want the Dragonfly's extension to look completely different from the Dragonfly. You gotta think about branding."

"Says the guy with the _hardware store sign_ outside of his _diner_ ," Lorelai pointed out.

"I'm just saying people staying at the Dragonfly are going to want the Dragonfly experience," Luke argued.

"But they're not staying at the Dragonfly. We're asking them to stay at the _annex_ , and nobody's going to _want_ to stay at an annex when they could have the original, so we have to give people a _reason_ to book the annex," Lorelai said.

"And you think making them feel like they're in the middle of a city when they're really in La La Land is the way to do that?" Luke asked.

"Ooh! _La La Land_!" Lorelai gasped with excitement.

"That's not any better," Luke said.

"But maybe we can get Emma Stone to come for the opening!" Lorelai said. "Take _that_ , Woodbridge!"

Luke put down the pot of coffee in his hand and grabbed his wife's design book. "Okay, you've lost it," he said.

"But…my book…" Lorelai said.

"You can have it back when you're ready to look at this rationally," Luke said, sliding it between the toaster and some extra menus behind the counter. "Go to work."

"You're mean," Lorelai accused. Luke raised his eyebrows and handed her a to-go cup of coffee he'd already made up for her. Lorelai smiled. "Much better."

"I'll see you later," Luke said.

"Okay, kiss," Lorelai said. Luke leaned over the counter to kiss her goodbye.

Lorelai's phone rang almost as soon as she'd stepped out of the diner. She'd elected to walk, despite the chill in the air, so she fished her phone out of her bag, saw her daughter's name on the screen, and answered the call, looking behind her shoulder as she crossed a street on her way to the inn.

"Hi, Mom!" Rory said with excitement.

"Hey, kid," Lorelai said with endearment, a smile on her face. "You sound happy. All went well with Logan?"

"Oh, I, uh…" Rory stuttered, the line growing quiet for a few moments. "I haven't told Logan yet."

"You haven't told him yet?" Lorelai asked in disbelief.

"No," Rory said.

"Rory, you got into London at 9 o'clock in the morning yesterday," Lorelai said.

"I know," Rory mumbled.

"And I know you didn't go to sleep because you refuse to let yourself succumb to jet lag," Lorelai continued.

"Right," Rory sighed.

"So what the hell have you been doing for two days?" Lorelai asked with impatience.

"I walked around, wrote two more chapters in one of the parks near my hotel. It's cold, but sometimes that gets the mental juices flowing, you know? Oh, and I rode the London Eye! Can you believe that in all the time I've spent here, I've never done the London Eye? Never," Rory rambled. "And it's a classic. I mean, it's one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world, so even though it's overpriced and kind of cheesy, I thought I should finally do it, for the experience, if nothing else."

"Rory," Lorelai interrupted. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" Rory asked.

"Is Logan out of town?" Lorelai asked.

"No," Rory said.

"Was he not home? Is he incapable of talking, like he's in a coma or something?"

"I don't think so," Rory said.

"Then you have to be back on a plane in less than two days, and you haven't even started what you went there to do yet!" Lorelai said.

"Oh, that's okay," Rory said confidently. "I thought I would probably chicken out and not make it all the way up to his place the first few times, so I built in a few panic days when I booked the plane tickets."

Lorelai tilted the phone away from her mouth for a moment so Rory wouldn't hear her taking a deep, calming breath. "Rory, honey, you need to tell him," Lorelai said. "Or don't tell him. That's fine, too. It's totally your choice, and there are plenty of pros and cons to each option, but if you don't tell him, then you've spent a couple thousand dollars on a fancy vacation to London, and that's just not the best choice for you to be making right now."

"It's not that fancy," Rory insisted.

"Where did you get the name of your hotel from?" Lorelai asked.

"Grandma," Rory said.

"Then it's fancy," Lorelai said. "Hey, why don't you call me next time you go to Logan's? I can talk to you all the way up to the door, help you get there."

"Mom…" Rory sighed.

"Look, kid, I know it's hard. When the situation's not ideal, it's probably one the hardest things you'll ever have to tell anyone, but if you've decided you want to tell him, you've just got to rip off the band-aid," Lorelai said.

"Just do it, huh?" Rory asked.

"Pretty much," Lorelai said.

"It's that easy?" Rory asked.

"Not at all," Lorelai said honestly. "Good luck, hon."

* * *

Cassandra and Stone walked into the hospital alone, having made their way over shortly after Mrs. Cillian left the house. As they came upon the window into Mr. Cillian's room, Cassandra noticed he was awake and sitting up in his bed. She gasped, dropped her stuff onto the floor, and ran into his room.

"Okay, yeah, I'll just pick this up…" Stone muttered to himself, leaning over to pick up her purse and coat. He took a seat in one of the chairs just outside of the room, giving her space to talk to her dad.

Inside the patient room, Cassandra halted just inside the doorway, not sure what to do once she was really inside. Thomas Cillian looked up at the noise and closed his book immediately.

"I didn't dream that yesterday," he said.

"Dream what?" Cassandra asked, her eyes already beginning to fill with scared tears.

"You," he said softly. Cassandra's face began to crumble, and Tom held out his hand. "Hey, hey, come here."

"Sorry," Cassandra said, shaking her head. She breathed back the tears, took her father's hand, and sat down on the side of his bed. "I don't really know how to be on the other side of this arrangement," she said with a small nervous laugh, gesturing between them with her finger.

"You're doing fine," he promised. "Where's your mother?"

"Lawyers," Cassandra said. "And she said something about your office asking for an official statement."

"So the fact that I'm here has hit the media," he said.

"Probably," Cassandra said. "I haven't looked."

"Good," he said. "Don't."

"What can I do?" she asked, nearly blurting it out.

"There isn't anything you can do, sweetheart," Tom said. "You know what's going on?"

Cassandra nodded. "I talked to your oncologist yesterday, but there has to be something," she said quickly. "What do you need? Family members make the best matches. Do you need a new lung? You can have one of mine. I don't need them both."

"Shh…calm down," Tom said, caressing Cassandra's hand. "You know you _can't_ , little girl. You're not healthy, either."

"Wait, do you really need something because actually…" Cassandra said quickly.

"No," Tom hurriedly said. He paused a moment. "What does that mean, actually?"

"I won the unwinnable fight," she said, crossing her arms in an act of defiance.

"What?" he asked.

"Well, I was…" she said, pointing to him in the hospital bed.

"You were in the hospital again?" he asked dreadfully. Cassandra nodded. With frustration, he added, "You are supposed to call us when you're in the hospital."

"And you are supposed to inform your daughter when you have cancer, so I'd say we're even," Cassandra shrugged.

"I know you haven't let me be your father for a long time now, but I am still your father, and it is my job to protect you," he argued.

Cassandra scoffed and rolled her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. "I should've been told before it got to this point."

"Yes, you should have," Tom agreed. Cassandra's mouth closed on rebuttal, and her eyes narrowed; she hadn't expected to win that argument. Before she could say anything else, Tom said, "As I should've been told when you were back in the hospital."

"It happened too fast," she said.

"What happened?" he asked sternly. Cassandra relayed the story to him, leaving out the magical bits of the day everything had changed. When she was finished, Tom, still in near disbelief at the fact that he hadn't been informed, said, "You had a _craniotomy_?"

"Y-yes," Cassandra stuttered, startled at the anger she was receiving from him.

"You could've _died_ , Cassandra," he said.

"Yes," she said slowly.

"And you didn't think to call your mother and I before you went to the OR?" he asked.

"I didn't have _time_ , Dad," Cassandra sighed. "It was emergency surgery, and my friends didn't know to call you, so…can you focus on the end of that story, please?"

Tom was quiet for a moment, staring at his daughter. All of a sudden, his gaze softened, and a look of realization crossed his face. "There's no more tumor?"

"No," Cassandra said with a smile. "But it's only been a few months, and I'm still on some post-op meds, so I probably still can't…"

" _Months_? When were you going to tell us, Cassandra?" he asked, and a shot of the fear that every child gets when they're in trouble traveled across Cassandra's stomach. Even in a hospital bed, he still had the ability to seem extremely imposing.

"I meant to," she said. She spoke slowly as she explained, "I just…I wanted to get through the worst of the recovery, and then there was a big, um…project at work that had to be taken care of, and it's always kind of weird talking about it with you and Mom since that's what led to everything that happened, and us not really being…you know."

Tom nodded sadly. He was quiet for a long time before he finally said, "We failed you."

"No," Cassandra said, shaking her head. "Dad, you…"

"Let me say this," he interrupted, and Cassandra silenced herself mid-statement with a gentle nod of her head.

She didn't know how to react as her father started running through a list of all of his mistakes. He had never understood what she was talking about all those years when it came to the synesthesia, the colors and the breakfast smells. He shouldn't have brushed sudden correlating complaints of headaches off as a child smarter than he could ever hope to be too strung out on increasingly challenging academia. He should've taken her to a doctor right away; he shouldn't have made decisions without listening to what she wanted, what she needed.

"You were old enough to call the shots," he said. "God knows, you handled it better than either of us, and I'm sorry we made you feel like you had to do what you did and deal with it on your own."

"You understand why I had to, though, right?" Cassandra asked in a small voice.

"I do," Tom said. "And I'm sorry."

Cassandra just looked at him for a moment. She leaned forward slowly, giving him time to stop it if he wanted, before she softly kissed his cheek.

"It's okay, Daddy," Cassandra whispered.

"It is?" he asked.

"Well, no, but I forgive you," she said.

"Thank you," he said. She nodded and shot him the brightest smile she could muster. "You seem happy, like the girl I knew before all of this," he said, and Cassandra smiled again. "What are you up to now that has you looking so happy?"

Cassandra hesitated. The smile on her face slowly faded as she contemplated the truthful answer to that question. She shouldn't give him that answer; she knew she shouldn't, and she _certainly_ shouldn't do what she was thinking about doing, but when she bit the side of her lip and looked behind her, checking to see who, if anyone, might be watching them from that window, no one was there. Stone was sitting in a chair reading a newspaper, not paying any attention to her, and she turned back to her father with a hesitant gaze.

* * *

Some time later, Connie Cillian arrived at the hospital after her busy morning, eager to see her husband. She came upon his room and found a chair full of Cassandra and Stone's things, but neither Cassandra nor Stone was sitting outside. She looked through the window to find Cassandra still sitting on Tom's bed. Her husband looked tired but happy, and so did her daughter, and a stab of jealousy shot through her; he had always had the better relationship with Cassandra, even when she was a child. Connie stood off to the side and watched them, deciding not to interrupt just yet.

Inside the hospital room, Tom had told his daughter he needed to rest, so Cassandra promised to go. She stood from the side of the mattress and smoothed out her dress.

"Cassandra," he said.

"Yeah?" she asked, looking up at him again.

"Tell your mother about your surgery," he said.

Cassandra sunk down into a chair by the bed and said, "She's been nothing but mean to me since I got here."

" _Cassandra_ ," he said sternly, as if she knew better than to cite that as a reason to withhold such life-changing information, and her eyes widened. She suddenly felt fifteen again as he said, "Tell her. Before you leave. Consider it my dying wish."

"Dad," she whispered.

" _Tell her_ ," he commanded. "It needs to come from you."

Cassandra nodded. "I will," she promised.

Outside, Connie watched as a few more words were exchanged before Cassandra leaned over the bed and kissed her father's cheek again. She walked out of his room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Cassandra quickly noticed that while her mother was outside, Stone was gone, so she shot Connie a pleasant smile before her eyes hit the floor as she passed her. She was heading towards the cafeteria, thinking that's where she'd find Stone, but before she could get too far, her mother's voice stopped her.

"Why are you here?" Connie asked. Cassandra stopped, held her position for a moment in surprise, and then twirled around to face her.

"Because you called me and said Dad was in the hospital," she said.

"Well, that didn't mean…" Connie started.

"You didn't think I'd want to see him?" Cassandra asked.

"You haven't wanted to see him. You left that house and never looked back," Connie said. "Why would now be any different?"

"You're really going to hold that over me for the rest of my life, aren't you?" Cassandra asked. "You know why this is different."

"You just left," Connie said with a wave of her hand. "Snuck out your window; we had no idea where you were."

"I had to go, Mom," Cassandra sighed.

"Until the emancipation papers came in," Connie said, as if Cassandra hadn't said anything in response at all. " _That message_ , we got loud and clear."

"I _had_ to," Cassandra repeated. "I needed control of…"

"He never recovered from that, Cassandra. He was _never_ the same after that."

"Then why did you call?" Cassandra asked. "He beat _cancer_ without me knowing."

"He wanted me to call you," Connie said.

"Then why don't you put aside this grudge you have against me and think about someone else for a change?" Cassandra said, her voice finally rising.

"Excuse me?" Connie asked.

"He told you to call me because he wanted me to come. Because he thinks…" Cassandra argued, her voice cutting off of a small sob. She sighed and softly said, "I'll disappear when this is…resolved. I promise you won't have to see me again."

Connie opened her mouth to sigh her daughter's name, as if she were the one who was being overly dramatic, and Stone came around the corner of the hallway, returning from his coffee run at exactly the wrong moment. Neither noticed his arrival, but he could sure sense he'd walked into the middle of something, and before Connie could say anything, Cassandra stopped her, the nagging thought she'd had in her head ever since she arrived in Connecticut finally getting the best of her.

"What if it was me?" Cassandra asked her mother. "What if I called you and told you I was about to die? Would you come?"

Connie locked eyes with her daughter for a moment, Cassandra's pivot having caught her off guard. A small flash of hurt crossed her face before she turned to Stone and said, "She'll hurt you, you know."

Cassandra laughed in near disbelief at the reaction she had received and crossed her arms across her chest. Stone looked between mother and daughter, not knowing what to do. He and Cassandra both knew how close she'd come to having to make that call. They also both knew she wouldn't have to anymore, but Connie didn't know that yet. Stone looked to Cassandra for some guidance on how to respond to what was happening, but Cassandra was staring at a corner where the ceiling met the wall, lost in pain and anger.

"Uhh…" Stone finally stuttered, frozen in the hospital hallway.

"She'll decide she has to do something, whether it's the right thing to do or not, and she'll find a way to justify it. Make herself believe she's doing the right thing," Connie continued. "But she'll break your heart. That's what she does."

With that, Connie slipped into Tom's room, leaving Cassandra near tears and Stone standing shell-shocked. Stone didn't know what to say, and Cassandra suddenly couldn't bring herself to look at him. Her mother was right, and she knew she had already made a bad decision for selfish reasons and broken the heart of everyone she now cared about. Lucky for her, Stone and the rest of the Librarians forgave easier than Constance Cillian.

Stone finally took the three steps over to Cassandra and wordlessly held out a bag containing the muffin he'd picked up for her at the coffee shop. Cassandra grabbed it without uncrossing her arms, peering into the room to look at her parents.

"Remember when you told me family ain't easy?" Cassandra asked. "You had no idea."

"I'm beginnin' to see that," Stone said.

Without another word, Cassandra grabbed her stuff from the chair and started walking away. She slung her cross-body purse over her shoulder and pulled on her peacoat and scarf as she walked, and Stone pulled his coat on, too, following her down three flights of stairs and out the front door of the hospital without so much as a peep. When the cold, Connecticut winter air hit their faces, Stone hurriedly zipped up his coat and shoved his hands into the pockets.

"Where're you going?" he called.

"I don't know," Cassandra admitted.

"Cassie, it's freezin' out here!" he said.

She stopped then, watching as a bus pulled into the hospital stop at the end of the long sidewalk. Getting an idea, she pulled up her sleeve and checked the time on her watch.

"Come on," she said, quickly walking in the direction of the bus.

"What…" Stone started.

" _Come on_ ," she repeated with urgency, doubling back to grab his arm and pull him with her. Cassandra ran over to the bus stop, Jacob in tow, and checked the schedule behind the bench as people disembarked the bus. She grinned. "Fifteen years, and the schedule hasn't changed," she muttered.

"Where are we going?" he asked again.

The crowd cleared, freeing the way for Cassandra and Stone to board the bus. Cassandra looked at him and confidently said, "Stars Hollow."

* * *

 _Things will (naturally) be a little more integrated from here on out, so get ready for some Stars Hollow characters! Thanks for the reviews so far. I didn't think anyone would find this (thanks, website, for basically hiding crossovers) so I'm glad a few of you have :) Please continue to leave me comments! They make my day._


	5. Chapter 4

_Mia, the owner of the Independence Inn in Stars Hollow, strolled through the hallways on her visit. She lived in California now, but she tried to visit from time to time to make sure everything was still running smoothly, though she knew she needn't worry about that with Lorelai in charge. As she made her way down one of the guest corridors, she peered into an open door and saw Cassandra prepping the room for its next occupants. Mia's watchful gaze was interrupted as the inn's chef, Sookie St. James, bumped into her from behind._

" _Oh! Sorry, Mia!" Sookie said with a giggle as the women stepped just to the side of the open doorway._

" _No problem, dear," Mia said. She spotted the tray in Sookie's hands. "Are you delivering room service?"_

" _Yeah. Yeah, Ricardo was busy, but it'd been a little while, and the food's just not as good when it's lukewarm, so I just ran up to deliver it myself, but then I nearly spilled it all over one of the bellhops and the luggage he was delivering, and that's when I remembered why I don't carry trays around the inn," Sookie explained with a slight cringe. "What are you doing?"_

" _Sookie," Mia said quietly. "Who is the girl working in this room here?"_

 _Sookie peeked around the corner just long enough to catch a glimpse and said, "Oh, that's Cassandra. She's been here about six months now."_

" _She looks remarkably young," Mia commented._

" _Yeah, she's Lorelai's Lorelai!" Sookie said. She leaned around the doorway again. "Hey! Kitten," she said to Cassandra. Cassandra looked over. "Come here."_

 _Cassandra walked over to the doorway and saw Mia standing with Sookie outside. She instantly looked a little worried and said, "I'm almost done; I promise. I didn't know there was an early check-in for this room today."_

" _Oh, no, no," Mia said. "You're fine."_

" _This is Mia; she owns the inn," Sookie said._

" _Oh," Cassandra said. She immediately began trying to straighten her skirt. "It's so nice to meet you; everyone talks so fondly of you." Cassandra looked at Sookie and said, "Right? She's the one who Lorelai…"_

" _Yeah, she's Lorelai's Lorelai," Sookie said. Realizing what she had just said, she dissolved into a fit of giggles. "I just said that about you; I said that to Mia about…she's to Lorelai what Lorelai is to…now I'm confused."_

" _I think I get it," Cassandra said with a laugh._

" _How old are you, dear?" Mia asked._

" _Sixteen," Cassandra said._

" _And you have a baby, too?" Mia asked._

" _No, I have a brain tumor," Cassandra said. She still hated talking about it, but Cassandra had quickly decided talking about it was better than anyone in this town assuming she had a baby._

" _Oh, heavens," Mia said immediately._

 _Before the conversation could go any further, Lorelai rounded the corner. "Hey, party in the hallway," she said. "Sookie, I think something's burning in the kitchen."_

" _Oh, crap!" Sookie exclaimed. She immediately ran back the way Lorelai had come._

" _I'm gonna get back to…" Cassandra said, pointing inside the guest room. "It was nice to meet you."_

" _You, too," Mia said. Once Cassandra had disappeared, Mia linked her arm through Lorelai's and continued her walk along the hallway._

" _Everything okay?" Lorelai asked._

" _Yes," Mia said. "I was asking Sookie about Cassandra. She looked so young; I was worried. Did you look that young when you walked in here all those years ago?"_

" _You mean I don't_ still _look that young?" Lorelai teased. "Why, Mia, I'm hurt."_

" _Oh, stop it," Mia said. "Sookie said she's your Lorelai."_

" _Yeah," Lorelai sighed. "She's sick, Mia. She's from my parents' world up in Hartford, and she_ hated _the choices her parents were making for her. Sound familiar? I found her in Luke's right after she ran away."_

" _And you gave her a job?" Mia asked. Lorelai nodded. "And where's she living?"_

" _Across the street with my assistant event planner," Lorelai said._

" _The college girl," Mia said. Lorelai nodded. "You set that up, too?"_

" _I introduced them; they got there on their own," Lorelai said with another sigh._

" _What's wrong?" Mia asked._

" _Sometimes I just…did I do the right thing, Mia? Should I have sent her home?"_

" _What would you have done if I had turned you away and tried to send you home?" Mia asked. "Would you have gone home?"_

 _Lorelai snorted. "No," she said._

" _You did the right thing," Mia promised._

* * *

The public bus pulled into the little town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, its door opening at the stop just next to the local high school in the middle of the town square. This time, Cassandra bounded down the steps, her curled hair bouncing against her shoulders, and Stone wandered off the bus behind her, looking around in a different sort of wonder. While her parents' home had been extravagant and over-indulgent, as she'd put it, this town was the opposite. It didn't quite look like any of the southern small towns he'd ever lived in, but there was an air of friendliness that hadn't existed in Hartford but was very much present in the small, locally-owned storefronts and the town square with the white gazebo in the middle. Cassandra stood, breathing in the fresh air. The bus drove away, and Stone came up by her side.

"This is Stars Hollow?" he asked.

"In all its wonderfully weird glory," she said.

"It don't look that weird," Stone muttered.

Cassandra grinned knowingly. "Just wait." She turned around to look towards the town square and gasped. "Oh, it's Firelight week!"

"What?" he asked.

"It's a town anniversary party. Miss Patty tells this story about star-crossed lovers, but the area was actually named long before that by Reverend Ezekiel, I think. It might just be town legend, but Stars Hollow likes to celebrate, and the fire's really pretty, you know, once they find the matches to start it, and they have star-shaped hotdogs that seemingly defy the laws of physics, so we go with it."

"Reverend Ezekiel?" Stone asked. Cassandra nodded. "Can't bring Jones here, either."

Cassandra laughed and grabbed his arm. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" he asked, kind of in awe of how quickly Cassandra's demeanor had changed.

"Diner," Cassandra said, pointing across the way to Luke's. "I'm starving."

"Cass, that's a hardware store," Stone said, noticing the sign above the entrance.

Cassandra shook her head. "No, it's not."

"But the sign says…" Stone protested.

"I know," Cassandra nodded. "It's a diner."

"This where the weird starts?" he asks. Cassandra smiled. "You seem to know this town."

"Yeah," Cassandra nodded. She left it at that, and, sensing another topic Cassandra didn't really want to get into, Stone left it, too, following her to the _not_ hardware store across the way.

* * *

The door jingled as they entered Luke's, and Cassandra unraveled the scarf from around her neck as she took a seat at the counter. Stone sat down next to her and grabbed a menu. He offered one to her, too, but Cassandra shook her head, knowing she didn't need one. Luke came out of the kitchen to greet his new customers, and, upon seeing who had taken up residence at his counter, grinned and walked over.

"You just get off the bus?" he asked. Cassandra nodded. "Well, you look a lot better than the last time you wandered in here from the bus stop."

Cassandra laughed a self-deprecating laugh and said, "Thank you, I think."

"Grilled cheese?" he asked.

"Sure," Cassandra agreed. "And I know you're gonna give me hell for this, but you think you could throw in some extra fries? It's been a hard morning."

"You can have extra fries; Lorelai can't have extra fries," Luke said. He gestured to Stone. "He with you?" Cassandra nodded. "What'll it be?"

"How about a good, old-fashioned burger?" Stone said.

"You want fries?" Luke asked.

"Onion rings," Stone told Luke.

"You got it," Luke said, heading towards the back.

"So who's Lorelai?" Stone finally asked. "Heard that name a few times now."

Cassandra, realizing _story time_ was quickly becoming unavoidable, especially now that they were in Stars Hollow, took a deep breath. Before she could say anything, the little bell jingled again, and the woman in question burst through the door.

"I smell snow!" Lorelai called, announcing her feelings to the entire diner. Cassandra knew the voice without turning around in her seat. Stone, however, swirled around his barstool, eager to see the force of nature that had just entered the establishment.

"That's Lorelai," Cassandra muttered. She finally turned around, too, and Lorelai's mouth dropped open.

"And good things _always_ happen when it snows," Lorelai said. " _Cassandra_." Cassandra smiled and stood up as Lorelai came over for a hug. When Lorelai pulled away, she gasped, "Oh, that _rat_!"

"Who?" Cassandra asked.

"My mother!" Lorelai said. "She showed up in town yesterday for lunch, and told me about Tom and told me she was staying with your mother – they're still friends? _How are they still_ …anyway, she asked me about you, but if she's staying with Connie, and I'm assuming you are, too, then she already knew you were here, and she didn't tell me. _That's_ what the 'I-know-something-Lorelai-doesn't-know' face was about!"

"Probably," Cassandra nodded. "She was there when I got there the other night."

"I can't believe her," Lorelai said. "Right after I said I hadn't heard from you in a while."

"I wouldn't have left without stopping by," Cassandra promised.

Stone finally leaned forward, butting into the conversation, and said, "Uh…Cassandra?"

"Ooh, who's this?" Lorelai asked.

"My friend and coworker, Jacob Stone," Cassandra said.

"Oh, we're going to have to keep you away from Miss Patty," Lorelai said immediately.

Cassandra laughed and said, "Oh, you're right."

"Do you know everyone in this town?" he asked Cassandra.

"I used to live here," Cassandra revealed. "Lorelai was my boss."

"Oh," Stone said. "I just assumed since your mom knows her mom…"

"Oh, Cassandra and I go way back, but not that far back," Lorelai said. "Except now I'm going to have to shun her because _somebody_ didn't email me _at all_ last year like she's supposed to, and I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from her again." Cassandra cringed and Lorelai turned back to her. "I was thinking that I'd have to ask my _mother_ to ask _your_ mother if you were okay, a situation that, I'm sure, would be way more awful in practice than I'm imagining, and I'm imagining that to be pretty bad. So how are you? Is it still a grape? It's not a grapefruit, is it?"

Stone sat wide-eyed at the counter. He thought he'd heard the fastest speech he'd ever hear come out of a human when Cassandra was in one of her 'covering up the sadness' moods, but Lorelai's seemingly normal cadence had her beat, and try as he might, he didn't think he'd ever get used to the blunt talk concerning Cassandra's former condition.

"It was," Cassandra answered, completely unfazed by either thing that had made Stone momentarily forget his original question.

" _Was_?" Lorelai asked. Cassandra just grinned, and Lorelai hugged her again. "When?"

"Just a couple months ago," Cassandra said.

"Oh, that's it, huh?" Lorelai asked. "And before that? Come on. Let's hear this great excuse."

"Would you accept that life just got crazy, and I forgot?" Cassandra asked. "I mean, I moved to Portland…"

"Maine?" Lorelai asked.

" _Oregon_ ," Cassandra said.

"Wow," Lorelai said. "You're back in town because of your dad?"

"Yeah," Cassandra sighed.

"And you're here because you had to get away from your mother?" Lorelai guessed.

"Yeah," Cassandra said with a definite nod.

"Been there," Lorelai said. Luke chose that moment to walk out from the back kitchen with another table's lunch orders. Lorelai spotted him right away. "Hey, you! How long have you been keeping her from me, huh?"

"I found out she was here ten seconds before you walked in," Luke said. "What are you doing here?"

"I want my book!" Lorelai cried. Cassandra sunk back down to her stool at the counter, and Luke delivered his patrons' lunches.

"Are you ready to be realistic about this?" Luke asked.

"I was totally realistic earlier!" Lorelai cried.

"Making decisions based on the likelihood of getting Emmitt Stone here is _not_ realistic," Luke said.

" _Emma_ , god," Lorelai sighed. "Ten years with me, and you've learned _nothing_ about pop culture. I am a failure!"

"Hey, Cassandra," Luke said, wandering back behind his counter. "What would you think about a new inn in the town square with an upscale, kind of modern design?"

"In Stars Hollow?" Cassandra asked skeptically.

"See?" Luke said to Lorelai, pointing towards Cassandra.

"Okay, fine," Lorelai said. "Cassandra, what do you think of the hardware sign outside of the diner?"

"That's actually why I first came over here all those years ago," she said. "I wanted to see what it really was." Luke smiled victoriously, and Lorelai frowned.

"Okay, you're no help," Lorelai said. She turned to Stone. "You, what do you think?"

"I probably wouldn've come in here if not for her," Stone said. "I thought it was a store."

" _See_!" Lorelai said to Luke. She nodded towards Stone, and said, "I like him."

"What are we _actually_ talking about?" Cassandra asked.

"I'm expanding the Dragonfly, opening an annex across the way, and the interior plans look just like the Dragonfly, and nobody's going to want to come to the annex instead of the original if they look the same!" Lorelai cried.

Stone and Cassandra shared a brief look. "I don't know," Cassandra said. "Annexes are kind of nice."

"Speaking of inns, do you guys need a place to stay tonight?" Lorelai asked. "I've got an open room at the Dragonfly. Just one, but two beds. Was it bad enough to not go home?"

Cassandra looked at Stone. He shrugged. "You're calling the shots here, Cass," he said.

"That would be _wonderful_ ," Cassandra sighed.

"You remember where it is?" Lorelai asked. Cassandra nodded. Lorelai caught a glimpse of something out the window and turned to look outside. "Uh oh, I think you've been caught."

"What?" Cassandra asked.

"Babette was just peeking in here," Lorelai said, gesturing to the woman running, boobs in hand, towards the dance studio. "Looks like she's heading to Miss Patty's."

"Who's Miss Patty?" Stone asked.

"Town gossip," Cassandra said.

"Town _man-eater_ ," Lorelai added. "You watch that cute butt of yours."

"Oh jeez, _Lorelai_ ," Luke groaned.

"I mean, I'm just assuming he has a cute butt," Lorelai said. "He's sitting down, so I'm obviously not looking at his butt. Calm down."

"Luke! We're out of buns!" Caesar, Luke's cook, called from the back.

Luke groaned as Lorelai childishly giggled at the impeccable timing. "Excuse me," Luke said, heading towards his supply closet.

Lorelai waited until he disappeared from the dining room. She quickly crept behind the counter as she talked, looking for her design book. "Okay, so just head on over when you're done eating, or, you know, explore the town, watch out for Blanche and Dorothy over there. I'll be at the Inn until seven, and ahh!" Lorelai found her design book where Luke had hidden it and curled her hands around it with a triumphant laugh. Remembering that Luke was only a few steps away, she scurried back to the diner's door as she said, "And I should probably be getting back there, so I'll see you two later. Bye Luke!"

Just as quickly as she'd come, Lorelai was gone. Cassandra turned to Stone and repeated, "That was Lorelai."

"Was she hitting on me with that butt comment?" Stone asked.

"No," Cassandra laughed.

Before Stone could say anything else, Luke returned, carrying several packages of hamburger buns. He used one hand and gestured towards the door. "Did she just…?" he started. Cassandra nodded. "She took the book, didn't she?" Cassandra nodded again, a little slower this time. Luke sighed and headed back to the kitchen.

"So you used to live here?" Stone said.

"Sure did," Cassandra said.

"This is where you went when you snuck out of your house," Stone realized.

"Yup," Cassandra sighed.

"On purpose, or..." Stone said.

"Just kinda happened," Cassandra said. Caesar walked out with their lunches, and Cassandra sighed again. "Oh, food, _yes_."

Having hit another topic Cassandra wasn't ready to talk about, they ate most of their lunch in silence, punctuated only by an incident where Stone made the mistake of pulling out his cell phone, despite the no phones sign that still hung behind the counter, and asking Luke for a WiFi password. Luke gave him one, and Cassandra gasped in surprise. The gasp turned to giggles when Stone asked for clarification, Luke gave him an entirely different password, and Cassandra realized it was all a ruse. When they were finished eating, Cassandra led him through the town square, their stroll quickly interrupted by another gasp.

Before he knew what was happening, Cassandra was running towards a man in a hardhat walking his…pet pig? Frowning, Stone made his way over to join them. Cassandra was crouched down on the concrete, petting the pig as if it were a puppy.

"What the hell?" Stone mumbled, unable to help himself.

"What?" Cassandra asked innocently, looking up at him.

"It's a…it's a pig," Stone said. Cassandra simply continued to look at him. "On a leash! It's a pig on a…why is a pig on a dog leash?"

"A pig deserves some fresh air and exercise just as much as any dog," the pig's owner, Kirk Gleason, said definitively. Cassandra nodded. Kirk looked down at Cassandra as well. "I thought he was a country boy. He must have seen a pig before."

Cassandra stood up, her eyes wide. "You thought…where did you hear that?"

"I know I'm usually the last to hear everything, but I was in proximity of Miss Patty's when Babette ran over and said you were in Luke's Diner with Lorelai and a ruggedly handsome cowboy. I assumed cowboy meant he was from the country. Maybe I was too quick to judge, but that accent says southern, too," Kirk explained. "Surely, he knows what pig is."

"I know what a…" Stone started, defensive. Cassandra put her hand on his shoulder.

"He knows what a pig is; he's just never seen one on a leash before," Cassandra said. She leaned down to pet the enthusiastic little piglet again as she gushed, "But I get it because you wouldn't want this little cutie to run away!"

"Exactly," Kirk said.

Cassandra stood up again. "So what's with the hardhat, Kirk?"

"Those decorative stars could kill a man, Cassandra," Kirk said very seriously.

"What?" Stone asked.

"Oh, you're overseeing the festival again," Cassandra realized.

"That's right," Kirk said. He glanced over to the town square, ready to brag about how well everything was going, when he saw two of his workers tossing one of the smaller decorative stars back and forth between them. "Hey!" he called. "What are you…put that down! Come on, guys; I only left for like five minutes!"

Kirk ran off, pet pig running behind him, and Stone and Cassandra watched as the two boys ran away with the decorative star, purposely keeping it away from Kirk. Stone frowned – the whole scene before him was like a circus act gone wrong – and Cassandra watched with amusement and a hint of nostalgia.

"I'm beginnin' to see the weird," Stone admitted.

"Oh, come on, you're from a small town," Cassandra said. "It can't really be that different, can it?"

"The knowin' everyone else's business…yeah, that's the same," Stone said. "Pigs on a leash? That's a new one."

* * *

They arrived at the Dragonfly Inn just as the daylight was disappearing. They climbed off the little tram that bought them up to the building, and a light snowfall began just as they climbed the steps to the inn. Stone froze halfway up the steps.

"How the hell did she do that?" Stone asked, looking at the sky.

"What?" Cassandra asked.

"No snow in the forecast, but Lorelai said she _smelled_ it, and…" Stone said, baffled, pointing up towards the sky.

"Oh yeah, that's a Lorelai thing," Cassandra shrugged. "Makes no scientific sense whatsoever, but, you know, weather reports can be wrong."

Cassandra opened the door to the Dragonfly and spotted Lorelai on a couch to her right, in front of the full dining room. She waved a little hello as Lorelai looked up. Cassandra collapsed into one of the comfy chairs next to her. Stone shut the door behind them and wandered over, too.

"Nice call," Stone said to Lorelai, pointing outside. "With the snow."

"Oh, thanks," Lorelai said with a small smile. "Snow and I are old friends. I like to think it telepathically tells me when it's on its way so I don't miss it."

Stone took a seat on the arm of Cassandra's chair and said, "So Cassie just told me she's only seen this place once or twice before. Y'all worked together somewhere else?" He was itching to put the pieces of her past together, and Cassandra, realizing what he was doing, shot him a bit of a look.

"Yeah, there used to be another inn in town, the Independence Inn," Lorelai said. "I was the manager."

"And Cassandra was…?" Stone asked. From her slumped position in the chair, Cassandra rolled her eyes.

"The best accountant maid I've ever had!" Lorelai said with enthusiasm, sitting up a little bit straighter on the couch.

"Oh no," Cassandra sighed, knowing where this was going.

"What?" Stone asked.

"My accountant was on maternity leave, and there was a massive problem with the books, and I could feel myself rapidly aging as I tried to figure it out. That's both how long I looked at those numbers and how completely lost I was," Lorelai explained. "And Cassandra walked into my office because she couldn't get into one of the rooms she was supposed to be working on or something completely innocuous like that, and she ended up balancing the inn's books _for the year_ in just over an hour, and did I mention she was _seventeen_?"

"I got a really good bonus that year," Cassandra added casually.

"Well deserved, baby," Lorelai said. She then looked slightly guilty as she said, "And I really hate to do this, but, you know, it's almost Tax Day, and you're _here_ , so…"

"Leave me the books. I'll see what I can do," Cassandra promised.

Lorelai silently threw her fist into the air in victory, and Cassandra snickered. "Oh, hey," Lorelai said, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a key and passed it to Stone. "For your room. Upstairs, fourth door on the right."

"I'm gonna go check it out," Stone said, taking the key. Cassandra nodded.

Stone headed up the stairs, and Lorelai leaned towards Cassandra. "So what happened with Connie?"

Cassandra moaned before saying, "I just should've known better," she said. "She was telling me I shouldn't have come, so I asked if she would come see me if I called and told her I was dying. She didn't answer me. Just completely changed the subject, ignored the question."

"Oh _man_ ," Lorelai sighed. "Does she know, though? That you're not…anymore?"

Cassandra chuckled defensively as a fresh wave of hurt washed over her face. "No."

"Wow, lovely woman, your mother…" Lorelai said. Realizing what she'd said out loud, she immediately added, "Sorry."

"Oh, don't be sorry," Cassandra said. She sighed and said, "I don't want to talk about Mom anymore. Where's Rory these days? Emily said you took her the airport a few hours before I got in."

"Of all the airports in all the cities in all the world!" Lorelai said in an exaggerated voice. Cassandra grinned, and Lorelai's face fell on a silent sigh. "She's…well…she's fine, you know. She's off…dealing with some things in London right now. She'll be back soon," Lorelai said, stumbling a bit over her answer.

"Oh, she still lives here?" Cassandra asked with surprise.

"Lorelai!" Stone called then, much to Lorelai's relief, as he traveled back down the stairs. "There's uh…there's a dog on one of the beds up there."

"What?" Cassandra exclaimed, sitting upright in her chair.

Without a word, Lorelai stood up, grabbed the key out of Stone's hand, and headed towards the front desk on the other side of the inn. " _Michel_ ," she said sternly. "Get your dog out of Room 8."

"It is a vacant room," Michel drawled.

"It _was_ a vacant room," Lorelai said. "Now it's Cassandra's room."

"Cassandra?" Michel asked, finally looking up at Lorelai. Cassandra and Stone had followed her, hanging back near the entranceway. Michel looked over, and Cassandra waved. Michel's face momentarily lit up. "Oh! Cassandra!"

"This is not a pet-friendly hotel, Michel," Lorelai said.

"Cassandra always liked my dogs. Surely, he could…" Michel started.

"Get the dog out of there," Lorelai said.

Michel's face fell again. "No! I can't take him home tonight. Frederic is painting the nursery. He's just a puppy. Those fumes are harmful."

"Look, I don't care where you take him, but get him out of Room 8 right now," Lorelai said again.

"Fine!" Michel yelled. He came out from behind the desk to head up the stairs, and, as he passed by Cassandra, he sneered, "If he gets sick tonight and dies, it's your fault."

"Nice to see you, too," Cassandra muttered as Michel stomped his way up the stairs.

"He always like that?" Stone mumbled.

"Pretty much, yeah," Cassandra said.

* * *

After a dinner in the Dragonfly's restaurant and waiting on a quick refresh to their room after Michel's dog had vacated the bed, Cassandra and Stone headed upstairs for the night. The room had two double beds across from a fireplace, a bay window with a nice view, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub. Cassandra lingered in the doorway to the bathroom while Stone started a fire to warm the room. When the fire was crackling, he peered around the doorway to see what Cassandra was staring at.

"Take a bath," Stone said.

"What?" Cassandra said. "Oh, no, I'm…I'm exhausted."

"You're starin' at that thing like you wish you were in it," he pointed out. "I'm just going to bed. Take care of yourself."

"Okay," Cassandra agreed. She started to head into the bathroom but turned around. "I'm sorry about this – the spontaneous fleeing. We don't have any of our stuff, and…"

"So we wear the same clothes tomorrow," Stone shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay," Cassandra said again. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Stone replied.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading, and thanks for the reviews so far. Keep 'em coming :)_


	6. Chapter 5

_Cassandra loaded linens into the washing machines, grinning when she heard a quick pace of footsteps echoing down the basement hall. Quickly calculating stride and distance, Cassandra looked up just as her roommate, Marcie St. Clair, arrived in the laundry room, a little notebook tucked into the crook of her bent elbow._

" _Oh good," Marcie said, heading over to the long table in the center of the room. She smiled and said, "Hey," as she hopped up._

" _What's up?" Cassandra asked._

" _So you know that huge wedding Lorelai and I are working on?" Marcie asked. Cassandra nodded. "Well, the bride is insane…"_

" _I think you should probably get used to that in your line of work," Cassandra teased._

" _Ha ha," Marcie deadpanned. "Anyway, she doesn't want boring flowers. She wants 'sculptural' flowers…"_

" _What does that mean?" Cassandra asked._

" _Exactly," Marcie said. "I have no idea. But I drew this thing up. Can you look at it?"_

" _Sure," Cassandra shrugged. "You just want feedback?"_

" _No, I want your brain," Marcie said. Cassandra looked at her quizzically, and Marcie elaborated. "I don't know anything about engineering, and I can't show it to the crazy lady if it's not physically possible! Plus they're going to want to a price, and I have no idea how many plants this would take, so, you know, do flower math and stuff."_

" _Flower math," Cassandra repeated with amusement. She chuckled at her friend's obvious exasperation and said, "Let me see." Marcie flipped open her notebook and held it up for Cassandra to see as Cassandra walked over to the table. "I mean, with the right foundation, you know, structurally, I don't see why not, but…"_

 _Marcie waited as Cassandra got lost in dimensions and structures and possibilities of plants per square inch. She sat quietly, watching as Cassandra manipulated calculations in the space between them, sometimes muttering about completely unrelated things, knowing she'd come out of it soon enough. As Cassandra's vision-induced mumblings circled back to reality, she took a deep breath, and Marcie sat up a little straighter._

" _Everything smells like maple syrup," Cassandra said, looking embarrassed and apprehensive, the way she always looked after hallucinating equations in front of someone._

 _Marcie grinned. "So pancakes for dinner?"_

" _That never seems to freak you out," Cassandra said softly._

 _Marcie shrugged. "I mean, it freaks me out if I think about_ why _it happens," she admitted. "Otherwise, it's kind of cute."_

 _Cassandra smiled gently. She took a step forward and pushed herself onto her toes, meeting Marcie's lips with her own. The kissing thing was new; they hadn't been doing that long, and Cassandra felt Marcie smile against her mouth for just a moment before pressing back against her lips. Cassandra lowered her feet back to the floor, slowly breaking their kiss._

 _Outside the laundry room, Lorelai was looking for her intern. As she walked down the hall, she glanced up, stopping in her tracks when she saw Marcie and Cassandra with smitten little grins on their still-close faces. Curious and not wanting to interrupt, Lorelai ducked behind the side of a wire shelving unit in the hallway to watch._

 _Cassandra stepped back and took the pink pen from Marcie's notebook, scribbling numbers underneath her blueprints. "You can take the exact price estimates from there, right?"_

" _Yeah," Marcie said. She got a look at the number of flowers Cassandra had come up with and her eyes widened. "Holy crap."_

" _Yeah," Cassandra agreed with a laugh._

" _And you did that in five minutes. You could run the world someday, you know."_

 _Cassandra chuckled shyly; Marcie hopped off the table and grabbed Cassandra's arm as she turned back to her task. Cassandra stilled, and Marcie pulled her in for another kiss._

 _Lorelai hoped the gasp that escaped her lips when theirs touched wasn't loud enough to alert the girls to her watchful gaze. Before Lorelai could process what was happening, the girls had begun heading right for her. She tried to scurry away before either of them could notice her, but in her haste, she smacked into the wire shelving, causing a noise that nobody would miss. They broke instantly apart, the hands that were once joined now behind their backs._

" _You didn't see anything in there," Marcie said with authority after several long, uncomfortable moments of silence._

" _See what?" Lorelai asked, playing along. Marcie nodded and passed Lorelai, heading for the stairs. Cassandra walked by her, too, awkwardly glancing at the floor as she turned off towards the supply closet. Lorelai sighed and turned around."Girls," she said. They turned to face her again. "I don't care if you're together. Are you…together?"_

" _Well…um…" Marcie stuttered, looking at Cassandra._

" _I'm just…curious," Lorelai mumbled._

" _We're not really sure yet," Cassandra said honestly._

" _Okay, well, as long as you don't do_ that _all day…it's fine," Lorelai assured them. "You don't really work together."_

" _That's not…really why we'd be keeping it quiet," Marcie admitted._

 _Lorelai looked between the two young, insecure girls before her and promised, "I don't care about that, either."_

" _You don't?" Cassandra asked._

" _No," Lorelai said. She walked forward, slung her arm around Marcie's shoulders, guided her towards the stairs, and, as if nothing at all had happened, said, "You'll never guess what this crazy woman has asked for now…we might have to sic Michel on her."_

* * *

Cassandra luxuriated in the hot water that filled the bathtub in her room at the Dragonfly. She closed her eyes and tried to will everything out of her mind, but she'd never really been able to do that. She emailed Lorelai a couple times a year. She talked to her parents on special occasions or when the need arose. Those arrangements suited her just fine. She never thought she'd be back in Connecticut at all, let alone running away to Stars Hollow, just like she'd done so many years before. Fifteen years, and nothing had changed. The bus to Stars Hollow still left Hartford around 1:30. Her parents could still make her feel defeated. Lorelai still gave her a place to run away to. This little town, in some ways, still felt more like home than home did.

A pang of guilt hit her as she realized her mother would, once again, return home at some point that night and realize she had no idea where her daughter was. A wave of anxiety followed when she thought about the explanation she owed the man sleeping on the other side of the bathroom door. He'd been following her around for days, hearing pieces from other people, hearing slips of information from her own lips, never getting the full story. A part of her always knew that asking him to come home with her meant exposing this part of her past to him, to all of them. Another part of her still wanted to fight that, but she knew he deserved to know how everything he'd heard fit together.

In the morning, she decided, as she slipped a little further into the soothing water. She'd deal with everything in the morning.

* * *

Back in Hartford, Connie arrived home and found Emily Gilmore in the living room, watching a movie with a glass of wine. Connie entered in a rush, heading straight for the stairs, and Emily asked if everything was alright. Connie said yes quickly, apologized, and promised to be back in a few minutes. She came back down after just a few moments, before she'd have had time to actually do anything on the second level of her home.

"Where's Cassandra?" Connie asked from the stairs. "Their rooms are dark."

Emily sat up on the couch. "She's not here."

"What do you mean she's not here?" Connie asked, walking back down the stairs.

"She's not with you?" Emily asked.

"No," Connie said. She slid her coat off her body and draped it across the banister. "She ran out hours ago. I assumed she came back here."

"I'm sorry, Connie. I was out this afternoon, but I haven't seen her," Emily said. Connie looked a little crestfallen as she looked down at her hands with a sigh. She fell down onto the couch next to her friend. Emily offered her the glass in her hands, and Connie took it, taking a long sip of the red wine. "Is everything alright?"

"I need to talk to her," Connie said.

"About Tom?"

"No," Connie sighed. "About…about things that were said earlier today that shouldn't have been said."

Emily was silent for a moment, having had all too many of those kinds of conversations with her own daughter. "Where do you think she might be?" Emily asked. Connie snorted with laughter and looked at Emily like she should simply know better than to need to ask that question. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"We know where she is," Connie said. She got up to refresh her glass and pour a second.

"Stars Hollow," Emily realized, taking the wine Connie offered her.

"Lorelai has an entire building full of bedrooms," Connie pointed out. "Plus, your daughter has _quite_ the history of greatly facilitating Cassandra's childish impulses."

"She does," Emily said through gritted teeth. She agreed with Connie now, hadn't agreed with Lorelai's decisions so long ago, but she didn't want to delve into that again.

"Where else would she go?" Connie sighed, sitting back down.

"Do you want me to call Lorelai?" Emily asked, knowing she was probably right.

"No," Connie said, shaking her head. "Please, I couldn't make Cassandra come home when she was sixteen. I certainly can't do it now."

"I know how that feels," Emily said.

There was a time when both women were sure that their daughters' relationship had ruined theirs, but despite the contention their daughters had put them in for a while, that was an experience they shared that few other people they encountered did. Lorelai's life had been thrown off course at sixteen; she'd left Emily's house with Rory and without a word a year later, not returning for many years. Cassandra encountered her obstacle a bit earlier, fled a bit faster, but Emily had understood how Connie had felt when Cassandra left in a way few others could.

"I don't know how to be with her anymore," Connie admitted, almost desperately. "I've wanted her to come home for years, and now she has, and I'm…"

"Still upset about everything that happened when she was sixteen," Emily said knowingly. Connie sighed again, looked at Emily, and nodded. "I know."

"Was it hard when Lorelai came back?" Connie asked.

"Sometimes," Emily said. She rolled her eyes as she thought of her relationship with Lorelai and said, "Sometimes it's _still_ hard. But having her back is worth it."

* * *

Luke walked out of the bathroom he shared with Lorelai, turning off the light. He expected to find Lorelai snuggled in their bed watching television, as she normally did when she planned to be up hours later than her husband, but instead, he found her sitting on their bed with her knees bent up in front of her, looking kind of lost and deep in thought.

"What's wrong?" Luke asked from the doorway.

"What?" Lorelai asked. "Oh, nothing. I'm fine."

"You look worried," Luke pointed out.

"It's nothing," Lorelai said with a false little smile. Deciding to drop the charade, she sighed and said, "Okay, I'm kind of wigging out a little."

"Why?" Luke asked.

"Did I make everything too easy for her?" Lorelai asked.

"Who?" Luke asked.

"Rory," Lorelai said. "Did I make her life too easy?"

"Where is this coming from?" Luke asked, making his way over to their bed.

"She called right after I left the diner this morning," Lorelai said.

"And?" Luke asked.

"She's 32, and she has no steady income, no real job at all, and no permanent address, which as much as I hate to admit it, my mother is right, and that _is_ kind of weird at her age, and _now_ she's having an engaged man's baby, which I have tried to be cool about because she's an adult, and she can make her own choices," Lorelai ranted. "And despite my instincts, I've tried to not compare Rory to myself because when I was 32, I had a _teenager_ , so it's obviously a totally different situation, not to mention coming of age in a totally different economic climate, and there's an entire gang of thirty-somethings in Stars Hollow in Rory's same place, generally, so she's fine, right? Those other kids don't have degrees from _Yale_ , but it's fine. She's a product of her generation!"

"But?" Luke sighed, knowing a _but_ was coming.

"But then, with all of this already in the back of my mind, Cassandra walked back into Stars Hollow today, and she's nearly Rory's age, and I never compared them much when Cassandra was here, though sometimes, I would look at her and think of _myself_ at sixteen and just be so glad that Rory never had to experience that, you know? That Rory grew up in a house where her opinion was valued, and she got to have a say in most things, and she never truly felt like she had to run away to be the person she wanted to be, and I know I shouldn't compare them now, either, because, again, _totally_ different situations, but the 'product of her generation' argument kind of goes right out the window when you're looking at a girl the same age from the same general area who seems to be doing really well despite the _really crappy_ hand life dealt to her, you know?"

"Yeah," Luke sighed. "I could see that."

"So then I started thinking about other people Rory's age, and Lane's doing well, and Paris and Doyle are doing _more than well_ , and Dean's doing alright from what I've heard, and hell, even _Jess_ has turned out pretty not terrible," Lorelai said. "Not that Rory's terrible, but she's also not _stable_ , and not anywhere near where we thought she would be, and I'm not going to hire Sarah Jessica Parker to kick her out or anything like that, and maybe it was all okay when it was just her, but it's not going to _be_ just her anymore, and now she's sitting in London parks and riding giant Ferris wheels, and she _hasn't even talked to him yet_ , and she's been there since Tuesday, so at this point, she's basically just on a vacation funded by trust money she got from my grandmother!"

"And you think all of this is your fault?" Luke asked.

"Well, maybe not _me_ , but the way I raised her…yeah," Lorelai sighed. "She's always had someone to bail her out, sometimes literally. Maybe we should've let her fall on her face a few dozen times."

"Was it your mother's fault when you got pregnant in high school?" Luke asked.

"What?" Lorelai asked.

"Or when you left Hartford and came here, was that her fault?" Luke asked. Lorelai looked at him quizzically, so he explained, "I'm just sayin', you had someone to bail you out. They were letting you live there with Rory, probably would've even helped you with her if you had wanted to go to college and follow a modified version of the path they'd envisioned for you, but that's not what happened."

"No," Lorelai said. "It wasn't."

"At some point, Rory's choices become hers," Luke said. "I would argue that Rory's choices have _always_ been hers since _she_ will willingly _eat_ a vegetable from time to time."

"She didn't get that from me," Lorelai said with a shrug.

"So yeah, maybe sometimes she's not the best at handling the hard stuff, but she's always known how to work for what she wants," Luke reminded her.

"What if she decides what she wants is to live in her childhood bedroom with my…"

"Grandchild?" Luke asked.

Lorelai let out an awful noise. "We've _got_ to come up with different words for all that because I am _way_ too young for that, buddy."

"I'm pretty sure that's just how it works," Luke said.

"Okay, _Grandpa_ _Luke_ ," Lorelai said. Luke cringed, and Lorelai laughed delightedly. Her face sobered, and she said, "But…Luke, seriously."

"If that's what she decides she wants, then that's when you get tough," Luke said. "Until then, I think what you're doing, being supportive of her choices even if you don't really feel it, is the way to go.

"Supportive," Lorelai repeated.

"I mean, isn't that what you – and Cassandra, for that matter – always wanted from _your_ parents?" Luke asked. Lorelai simply sighed, knowing he was right.

* * *

The added awareness that often comes with sleeping in a strange bed or in a strange location woke Stone from his slumber around 1:30 the next morning. He frowned when he realized the fire was somehow still heartily burning in the fireplace and rolled to look at Cassandra's bed. He found tousled covers, but no Cassandra. She was in the side of the bay window, her back against the wall, legs outstretched, as she watched the snow fall softly outside. Stone watched the calm rise and fall of her chest for a few moments before he climbed out of bed, too.

Despite the fire, a chill filled the air. He was sleeping in his boxers and the t-shirt he wore under his warmer clothes that day, so he wrapped a blanket from his bed around his shoulders as he stood. Cassandra, dressed in one of the Dragonfly Inn bathrobes, pulled her knees to her chest to give him room to sit down, too. He chuckled as he sat in the other side of the window.

"Bathrobe and leggings, huh?" he asked.

She pulled the robe tighter around her and said, "I really didn't think this running away thing through. Again."

"You didn't know we'd be stayin' the night," he said. Cassandra nodded. "When I saw you weren't in bed, I half expected to find you sitting here doing Lorelai's books."

"Oh, those are done," she said, pointing to where they were stacked in a pile on the small desk in the corner. "Yeah, those are…I finished those." She chuckled lightly and said, "They were even easier now that I do the Library's, too."

"Did you sleep at all?" he asked.

Cassandra shook her head. "I tried. Sleep has been a little weird since the surgery, but with everything…"

Stone moved forward then and held out his arms, offering her a hug. She simply looked at him skeptically, and he shrugged. "Take it, Cassie."

"I think if someone hugs me, I'm going to cry," she said honestly, holding her hands protectively against her chest.

Stone nodded and lowered his arms, but before he could move back to his side of the bay window, Cassandra had lunged forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She buried her face in the crook of one of her own arms, and he could feel her trying to keep her breathing steady. He wrapped his arms around her, and she sighed, leaning into him slightly. Just as quickly as her sigh ended, she was pulling away.

"It does seem like there's a lot going on here with…everything," Stone awkwardly prompted as he moved back to lean against the opposite side of the window.

Cassandra playfully rolled her eyes, let her back fall against the wall again, and then just started nodding her head. "Okay," she said softly. She took a breath and said, a little louder, with a small shake of her head, "Radical honesty."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"It means for the length of this conversation, you get to ask me anything you want about anything you've heard, and I will answer you," she promised.

"Okay, uh…well, I'll start with an easy one," he said. He wasn't entirely sure her proposition was serious. "Why's your dad's office want a _statement_?"

She laughed. "That is an easy one," she said. She grabbed her phone and passed it to him. "Why don't you Google Thomas Cillian? See what you get."

The room was quiet again for a few moments as Stone typed his name into Cassandra's phone and scanned the results. "Your dad's a state senator," he said. Cassandra nodded.

"When his law firm started gently pressing him to retire, he scaled back his hours and then got himself elected to the state senate."

"And you never had to be a part of that campaign stuff?" Stone asked.

"They tried," she admitted. "I finally told them where they could shove that idea, and they stopped asking." Stone laughed and handed the phone back to her. When he didn't launch into another question, Cassandra said, "This deal has an expiration date, you know."

"You left your parents' house when you were still a kid…" he started.

"Sixteen," she confirmed.

"So…not long after you found out about the…?" he asked, nodding towards her head.

"About a semester," Cassandra said.

"What happened?"

She took a deep breath and said, "I ended up in the hospital two days before they were going to take me to Europe for the first time. They found the tumor pretty quickly, but then there was a biopsy, and I was there for a while. Dad worked a lot. Mom…kept her visits short. They both tried to just forget about it, which wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that I couldn't legally make medical decisions on my own, so..."

"So nothing changed," Stone said.

"Right," she said sadly. "When school ended that year, they told me over ice cream that I wasn't going back, and then I got home and found all of my academic accolades gone."

"So you snuck out the window and came here," Stone said.

"Got off the bus, went to Luke's, and ten minutes later, met Lorelai," Cassandra confirmed. "She took me to the inn, offered me a job, put me up in a room for the night and told me to sleep on it."

"Just like that?" Stone asked.

Cassandra nodded. "Just like that. She said, in the morning, if I wanted to go home, she'd take me home, and if I wanted the job, it was mine. I took the job. She introduced me to the girl I lived with. It worked out."

"And that's why your mom hates Lorelai," Stone said.

"Yeah," Cassandra laughed. "It's a long story, but basically, it boils down to her belief that Lorelai should've sent me home. I don't think I would've gone home even if she had tried."

"And the suing your parents…" he prompted. Cassandra got a troubled look on her face at that, and in her silence, he put a few things together. "For control of the medical stuff."

Cassandra nodded. "Not right away, but yes. I had a life here by that point, so once it got in front of a judge, it was pretty open and shut. That was what really crushed Dad."

"What happened to the other inn?" Stone asked.

"Burned down," Cassandra said. "Freak accident."

"And that's when you went to New York?" Stone asked.

"Not quite," she said. "Lorelai kept me on until the owner decided to sell, and then I worked at Al's Pancake World for a little while, but that wasn't going to be a long-term solution because my clothes always smelled like Asian food."

" _What_?" Stone asked.

"What?" Cassandra repeated.

"You said it was a pancake world," Stone said.

"They serve international foods," Cassandra told him.

"This town is _nuts_ ," Stone sighed. Cassandra giggled. "Why New York? Why didn't you just stay? Lorelai probably would've hired ya here."

"Yeah, she offered, but Dr. Nassir was in New York. I read an article or two, though he was my answer," Cassandra said. She smiled and said, "I guess that turned out to be true. We tried radiation, but it made me really sick. That's about when the Library letter would've come."

"Would you have gone if you weren't sick?" Stone asked.

"Probably," Cassandra admitted.

A silence settled over them then, a silence only punctuated by the crackling of the fire across the room. Stone looked out the window, watching the snow still gently falling. Cassandra's eyes settled on the markings on Stone's arm – the ones that had come back with him from Shangri-La. Her eyes silently traveled over the dark lines and curves; she'd never really gotten to see it before. He always kept it hidden.

"Thank you," Stone finally said. "For trustin' me with all that personal information."

"Yeah…" she muttered, lost in her visual exploration of his magical souvenir. The words that had left his mouth caught up to her brain; she blinked and glanced up at him. "What? Oh…I've never not trusted you."

He realized, then, what she was looking at, and covered his arm with the blanket from the bed that had fallen from his shoulders. "You think that thing makes me a hypocrite, don't you?"

She looked at him again, eyes glittering with mischief as she asked, "Radical honesty?" He chuckled, thinking that probably answered his question, and said sure. "I kind of always think you're a hypocrite." He laughed again and Cassandra said, "But that's okay. Everyone has faults. It's certainly not like I'm perfect. I mean, everything my mother said today was true."

"Nothing that's happenin' to your dad right now is your fault," Stone said.

"No," Cassandra agreed. "But the hurting people with selfish decisions part is."

The silence fell over them again, the truth behind Cassandra's last statement hanging in the air between them. Finally, Stone stood up and touched her shoulder.

"Try to sleep," he told her, heading back to his bed.

Before he could get too far away, Cassandra grabbed his arm and gasped, "I told him!"

"Told who what?" Stone asked.

"Dad. Everything," Cassandra said.

"What do you mean 'everything?'" he asked, his voice hardened.

"Everything," she shrugged. "The Library and magic and me and my gift and…everything. I even ripped up part of his medical chart and showed him a reconstituting spell when he didn't believe me."

Stone sunk back down to the bay window, sitting closer to Cassandra this time. "You didn't," he said.

"He asked me why I looked happy," Cassandra said. "And you…you told me the one thing that hurt the most was your mama never knowing who you really are."

"Cassandra, what if he tells your mother?" Stone asked. "You know she ain't keeping that a secret if she finds out."

"He won't; I asked him not to," Cassandra said. "She wouldn't believe him anyway."

"But he still knows, and Baird and Jenkins ain't gonna like that," Stone said.

"It's not going to matter, Jacob," Cassandra said quietly.

He sighed. "I know," he said.

"I just wanted him to be proud of me again, one last time," Cassandra said. "He was so proud of me before…I just wanted _someone_ to be proud of me again."

"You know he's not the only one who could ever be proud of you," Stone said.

Cassandra scoffed. "My mother?" she asked in disbelief.

"I wasn't thinkin' of her, either," Stone said. Cassandra simply looked at him, and he continued, "As long as I'm around, you got someone who's proud of you."

"You hate everything I want to learn," she pointed out.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," he agreed. "I hate it, and I wish you would stay away from it, but I'm still proud of you, especially after hearing where you came from."

Before Cassandra could even think about what she was doing, she had lunged forward again – this time, capturing Stone's lips in a kiss. Surprised, he took a moment to catch up to her. He knew it was just an impulse, a momentary need born from a deeply poignant place, and despite his instincts, he kissed her, too. Cassandra came back to reality as her ears zeroed in on the sounds of the fire across the room, and she pulled away from Stone quickly, covering her mouth with her hand as if she was stunned by her own actions.

"I'm…I'm sor…" she started.

"It's okay," Stone interrupted with a whisper.

"I don't know why I…" she said.

"It's okay," Stone said again.

She dropped the hand covering her mouth, and Cassandra simply looked at him for a moment, wondering what she had done, wondering what she had done to deserve someone as patient as he was being with her this week. With another heavy sigh, she let her head fall back again, resting against her side of the bay window. He shifted back into place against his side, staying with her, his bed forgotten across the room, and the snow continued to fall gently outside of the Dragonfly.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! Review? :)_


	7. Chapter 6

_Aahhh, I'm sorry this took so long, guys! This story is nearly finished, and I was intending to post once a week, but I'm editing as I go (hence the nearly finished), and I've been a little short on free time. I hope some of you are still around :)_

* * *

 _Thomas Cillian wandered down the hallway of the pediatric medicine wing of the Hartford hospital, checking the numbers on each room as he passed by. It was ridiculous, he thought, going to see his emancipated daughter in a_ pediatric _wing, but despite her very grown-up life very away from him, she was still only seventeen. She was seventeen and in the hospital again, and he just wanted to find her._

 _He heard her giggle before he saw her, and he wondered what could be causing her to giggle in the hospital. Tom came up on her open doorway and found his girl lying on her side in the reclined hospital bed. She looked exhausted, but her eyes were still sparkling as she looked at the girl sitting dutifully by her bedside. This girl that Tom didn't know sat in a chair dragged right up to the edge of Cassandra's bed. Their hands were linked, their elbows resting on the mattress, and the girl gently caressed up and down Cassandra's bare forearm as she said whatever she was saying that was making Cassandra seemingly forget where she was. The girl smiled, too, at the sounds of Cassandra's giggles._

 _Tom took a few steps into the room, but neither girl noticed as the one in the chair slipped her hand to the side, keeping their fingers intertwined, and brought Cassandra's palm to her mouth for a sweet kiss. Tom cleared his throat, and both girls looked at him, startled expressions on their faces. Their hands separated immediately, though Marcie stayed right by the side of Cassandra's bed._

" _Hi, Dad," Cassandra said, the exhaustion evident in her voice._

" _What happened?" he asked._

" _Nothing," Cassandra said, quickly and instinctively. "I'm fine."_

" _She had a seizure," Marcie said, looking at Tom._

" _I thought you were on medicine for that," Tom said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "That was the point of dragging us to court, was it not?"_

" _The medicine helps prevent them," Cassandra said. "Sometimes one slips through."_

" _And she was bleeding," Marcie added._

" _Not helping," Cassandra said to her._

" _Sorry," Marcie said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."_

 _Marcie slipped out of the room, and Tom took her seat by Cassandra's bed. He asked what happened again, and Cassandra looked like she was about to cry._

" _It grew," she said, almost angry. "Now it's encroaching on something or whatever, and I guess nose bleeds are going to be a thing now, if I think too hard."_

 _Tom sighed. "I want you to promise me that you'll tell me when you're here," he said. "You may be out of my house, but you're my daughter, and I don't want you to…I don't want to miss my chance to…"_

" _Daddy, it was just a nose bleed," Cassandra said._

" _Just promise me, Cassandra," he said. Cassandra nodded. Silence fell between them until Tom took a composing breath. He looked towards the empty doorway. "Was that Marcie?"_

" _Yes,"_ _Cassandra said._

" _She's more than your roommate, isn't she?" Tom asked. Cassandra pushed herself up into a sitting position and stumbled over her words as she tried to come up with an answer for him. "Sweetheart, I'm not ridiculing." Cassandra remained silent, simply looking at her father. He tried again. "I don't care if you are," he said._

 _She hesitated again as she confirmed his suspicions with a simple, "Mom…will."_

" _Your mother cares about what others will think of her," Tom said. "Of us."_

 _Almost afraid to hear the answer, Cassandra asked, "Where is Mom?"_

 _Connie was down the hall, sitting in a chair in the pediatric waiting area, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to relieve the stress of the situation. She heard a voice say her daughter's name at the info desk next to her chair, and she looked up to find Lorelai Gilmore._

" _What are_ you _doing here?" Connie sneered._

" _Oh," Lorelai said. She thanked the receptionist and walked over to Connie. "Hey, I wanted to see if Cassandra's okay, so I'm just checking in before I pick up my daughter from Chilton. What room is she in?"_

" _She called you, but the_ hospital _called us," Connie said to herself._

" _I called the hospital," Lorelai corrected. "She seized in my office."_

" _Your office? Was she in trouble?" Connie asked._

" _No," Lorelai laughed. "God, no, she was saving my ass during a phone call with an auditor. You have an extremely brilliant kid here."_

" _Yes, well…she's not really a kid anymore," Connie said sadly. "Thanks to you."_

" _Whoa,_ what _? Thanks to_ me _?" Lorelai asked._

" _What kind of adult helps a sixteen-year-old run away from home?" Connie asked. "What kind of_ mother _helps a sixteen-year-old run away from home?"_

" _The kind that ran away from home at sixteen," Lorelai said flippantly. "Well, seventeen, but close enough."_

" _You think that's funny?" Connie asked._

" _No, I think that's the truth," Lorelai said._

" _Lorelai!" Marcie called as she turned the corner, interrupting the brewing scene before it could progress any further._

" _Hey," Lorelai said. "Have you seen her? Is she okay?"_

 _Marcie nodded. "They're just keeping her a few more hours for observation. Her dad's with her now. Come on."_

 _With another look in Connie's direction, Lorelai followed her assistant down the long hallway, and Connie sunk back into the waiting room chair._

* * *

Cassandra walked quietly down the Dragonfly Inn's stairs early the next morning. Having finally gone to sleep, she didn't stay that way long, which, considering the circumstances, suited her just fine. Lorelai walked out of her office, having just barely arrived for the day, as Cassandra reached the ground floor. Cassandra's presence startled her, and Lorelai gasped, instinctively grasping Cassandra's arm.

"Oh god, is everything okay?" Lorelai asked with concern.

"Yes. Good morning," Cassandra said, a little startled herself from Lorelai's reaction.

"Why are you awake? I thought you'd be exhausted," Lorelai said. She headed towards the reception desk, and Cassandra followed behind.

"Yeah, well…I wanted to get up and out before…" Cassandra muttered.

"Before…?" Lorelai prompted.

"Before Jacob…before it's _awkward_ , okay?"

Lorelai snickered. "What base did you get to?" she teased.

"What?" Cassandra asked. She groaned and said, with exasperation, "You know I've never understood that metaphor."

"What happened?" Lorelai tried again.

"You put us in the same hotel room! That's what happened!" Cassandra exclaimed.

"Wait, you _actually_ got to some of the bases?" Lorelai asked, her earlier comment having been just a joke.

"It's not that scandalous," Cassandra said. "It was just a kiss, but…I mean, we weren't wearing very much because, you know, I took off without any of our stuff, so we were sleeping in…what is that face?"

Cassandra stopped her rambling as soon as she caught a glimpse of Lorelai's face, her mouth open in surprise and amusement. Lorelai shook her head. "I'm just surprised, that's all."

"How do you go from teasing me about baseball to being surprised when you're right?" Cassandra asked. "What base is that, by the way?"

"Eh, maybe a little past first, considering the wardrobe situation."

"Oh, that's not so bad," Cassandra determined.

"You're into _guys_ , too?" Lorelai asked.

"Sometimes," Cassandra shrugged. Lorelai looked at her again, and Cassandra exclaimed, "Bisexuality is _totally_ a thing!"

"Of course it's a thing," Lorelai said. "I've just never seen you with a guy like that, nor have you _ever_ mentioned one in any emails."

"That's true," Cassandra said.

"And you looked _horrified_ that summer I caught Jess hitting on you," Lorelai recalled with a laugh.

"Well, that was _Jess_ ," Cassandra said. Lorelai laughed again. "And I was with Marcie then, and when I told him that, it only seemed to interest him more, which was…creepy."

"Yeah, well, teenage boy," Lorelai shrugged.

"Yeah…" Cassandra agreed with a roll of her eyes.

"You still talk to her?" Lorelai asked.

"Marcie?" Cassandra asked. "Yeah. She's in Chicago now."

"She never did strike me as much of a California girl," Lorelai said. "But, okay, back to Jacob – how awkward is this?"

"I don't know," Cassandra whined. She smiled softly and said, "I mean, it was nice, but our relationship has always been kind of tenuous, and…I just screw everything up in Connecticut!"

"Hey, no. You just went through a big, major life change, and it's maybe about to be followed by another big, major life change, and while he can't understand the first, he _can_ understand this one, so don't feel bad about needing a moment of comfort," Lorelai said. Cassandra was silent for a moment, her eyes thoughtful, her face slightly distraught, before she nodded. Lorelai switched gears and said, "So…nobody's stolen your heart in Portland, huh?"

"No," Cassandra sighed. "Well…nobody I'm going to end up with. Unrequited crush, _that's_ totally happening."

Lorelai leaned forward on the reception desk, eager for some more morning gossip now that her friend was feeling a little better. "Now we're talking," Lorelai smiled. "Tell me."

"Um, well, he's…" Cassandra stuttered, a little unsure of how to even describe Mr. Jenkins to Lorelai. At a bit of a loss, she mumbled, "Older than my father."

Lorelai stood back upright, the same look from earlier on her face again as she said, "You are a constant surprise." Cassandra laughed and muttered a word of thanks. Lorelai pondered something for a moment, and then asked, "This guy single?"

"Yes!" Cassandra said. "Of course!"

"Well, at least he's not married," Lorelai said. "Or, you know…engaged."

"What?" Cassandra asked, her lips curling into a smile.

"What?" Lorelai repeated.

"That just…didn't really sound like it was about me," Cassandra said.

"Oh, it's nothing. Nothing," Lorelai dismissed. She walked around the reception desk and wrapped her arm around Cassandra's shoulder, leading her towards the Dragonfly's kitchen. "Anyway, you are here on a good day…"

They walked into the kitchen and found Sookie St. James prepping both breakfast and treats for the Firelight Festival all at the same time, her kitchen staff running in circles around her. Lorelai paused in the doorway with Cassandra.

"Sookie!" Lorelai called. "Look what the cat dragged in!"

Sookie turned around with a sigh – she didn't really have time to stop – but her face lit up as she saw Cassandra, a small gasp escaping her lips. Cassandra grinned at Sookie's reaction and held up both hands in a small greeting.

"Kitten!" Sookie called, walking over. Lorelai stepped back and let her best friend hug Cassandra. Sookie waved her hands in front of Cassandra and gushed, "Look at you, all grown up…" She looked at Lorelai as her face fell and she added, "Oh _god_ , when did we get this old?"

" _Right_?" Lorelai sighed.

"You're just so old," Sookie gushed, turning back to Cassandra. "I mean…not old. You don't look old. You look great. You're just…"

"Older than anyone ever thought I would be with the brain grape," Cassandra said, putting an end to Sookie's rambling. "I know."

Both Lorelai and Sookie looked a little horrified as Sookie asked, " _Brain grape_?"

"A friend started calling it that," Cassandra explained. "I _hated_ it, but…it stuck. But _oh_ , don't worry about it, because that's not a problem anymore!"

Sookie's mouth fell open a bit. "That's amazing," she sighed. "Are you staying in the inn? What can I get you for breakfast?"

"Anything but grapes," Lorelai muttered.

* * *

Upstairs, a little while later, as Stone was getting ready to go downstairs and look for Cassandra, his phone rang, revealing Baird's face. He pulled his phone from Cassandra's charger, and answered.

"Jones _oh so casually_ said you two ran off on a family crisis while we were gone. Is everything alright?" she asked. Stone said it wasn't, really, and gave Baird a quick version of the story, filling her in on Cassandra's father. Baird sighed in sympathy and said, "Just when she didn't have to deal with _her own_ death anymore. Is she okay?"

"We're in a friendly place right now, but…she's sad, Baird. You can just tell," he said.

"A friendly place?" Baird asked.

"A little town outside the city," Stone said. "Something happened with her mom; she didn't want to go home last night. You should see that house, Baird."

"Yeah, well, ridiculous displays of wealth tend to come with the kind of money she's from," Baird said.

"Cassandra told you?" Stone asked.

"I read her file," Baird said with a shrug. "I read _all_ your files."

He wandered downstairs to find Cassandra in the little restaurant area of the inn, sitting at a table with Lorelai, her back to him. Lorelai nodded towards Cassandra as he approached, and Cassandra turned, meeting his eyes with hers. Without saying anything, after a brief moment, she just shot him a small smile. He returned the grin and held out his phone, telling her Baird wanted to talk. She grabbed his phone and hurried outside, despite not having her coat with her. The snow from the night before hadn't really stuck to the ground, and only a small dusting of white was left. She curled her free arm around her body and sat down on the porch swing. She took a breath, put the phone to her ear, and said, "I'm fine."

"Are you really, Red?" Baird asked.

"Well…no," Cassandra admitted. "I realized last night that this is probably something regular people consider at some point, that their parents are going to die, and they'll have to live in a world without them, but I was always the one who was going to die, so that was never an inevitable reality for me."

"I know," Baird said softly.

"But I talked to him. We're…we're okay. Mom's the one I have the most problems with anyway," Cassandra said.

"Is there anything I can do?" Baird asked.

"Come for the funeral? If it comes to that," Cassandra said. "Stone…I've put him through enough this week."

"We'll all be there to support you," Baird said. "You know that."

"Thank you," Cassandra said quietly.

"We need to talk about something," Baird said, her voice a little more stern. "Stone said you told your dad about the Library."

"I can't believe he ratted me out that quickly!" Cassandra replied.

"Cassandra…" Baird said.

"Well, I don't remember anybody telling me I _couldn't_ tell people about the Library!"

" _Cassandra_ ," Baird repeated, her tone saying she knows better than that.

"I know," Cassandra said. "I know I shouldn't have, but…he's not going to tell anybody. And if he does, my mom won't believe him. And if she does, I'm sure I can find some sort of memory erasing spell in the Library somewhere, and…"

"Cassandra!" Baird scolded again.

"I know you guys hate it when I jump to magic, but you're looking for an apology that I'm just not going to give you," Cassandra said honestly. She dropped the defiance in her tone as she explained, "It's different for you. You can tell your family you work private security, and that's not really a lie. He asked me what I do now, and why I looked happy, and I couldn't tell him I was a _librarian_ librarian because that requires degrees he knows I don't have, and I just…I didn't want to lie."

"Okay," Baird said quietly. "We'll deal with it if it becomes a problem."

"Do me a favor, though?" Cassandra asked. "Don't tell Mr. Jenkins? I don't want anybody else to be disappointed in me again."

"Nobody's disappointed in you," Baird promised.

"Stone is," Cassandra sighed. "If he told you that quickly…I mean, I have a history of betraying your trust."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Baird asked again. "I could come now."

"No," Cassandra insisted. "I'm fine."

* * *

As she finished the call with Baird, she spotted the horse stables off to the side of the Dragonfly. Cassandra couldn't tell if there were actually horses residing in there or not, but the stables stayed on her mind as she wandered back to the dining table inside. Breakfast had been delivered while she'd been talking to her Guardian, and she sat back down in the middle of a conversation between Lorelai and Stone.

"I don't know much about interior design," Stone said. "Architecture's more my specialty, but I'd be happy to take a look."

"Great!" Lorelai said with a smile. She looked at Cassandra and said, "He's gonna come check out the annex."

"That's great," Cassandra agreed, handing the phone back to Stone. As he pocketed the phone, Lorelai asked who Baird is. Cassandra said, "She's our boss."

"Is she as good of a boss as I was?" Lorelai teased.

"I wouldn't even know how to begin comparing the two of you," Cassandra said. Stone just chuckled in response.

"Fair enough," Lorelai said. She turned to Stone. "So how's tomorrow afternoon? We can meet at Luke's at noon? I'm assuming you'll still be here then, right?"

"No departure date set yet," Cassandra confirmed.

"Okay, so tomorrow?" Lorelai asked. "The room you guys are in is set to be vacant again tonight, so feel free to stay…" Cassandra shot her a wide-eyed look, and Lorelai remembered what she had told her about the events from the night before. Lorelai stuttered a bit as she said, "Or not stay or…you know…whatever. You can talk about it later, or not talk about it, or…just let me know. I'm gonna get to work now."

"Wait!" Cassandra said as Lorelai moved to get up. "Before you go…"

"Yeah?" Lorelai asked, sitting back down.

Cassandra pointed outside. "Well, I saw the stables…"

"I finally got a pony!" Lorelai cried.

"So there _are_ horses out there?" Cassandra asked. Lorelai nodded. "Can I take them out?"

"Sure," Lorelai said. "That's what they're there for. Just check with Michel. He schedules that sort of thing."

Lorelai headed off to work, leaving Stone and Cassandra alone at the table. They shared a look and another small smile before eating their breakfasts in silence. After a few moments of quiet, Stone said, "So…do you want to stay?"

Cassandra thought about it, then nodded slowly. "Since she's offering. I was thinking I'd go see Dad again this afternoon, but avoiding my mother for another 24 hours would be nice."

"How do you know she won't be at the hospital?" Stone asked.

"She goes to the club on Thursday afternoons. Well, the club's spa, really. I doubt she'd skip that, given the stress of…everything," Cassandra said. "Do you know how to ride horses? I just kind of assumed…"

"I can ride," Stone said. Cassandra smiled.

After breakfast, Cassandra and Stone headed over to the reception desk to see Michel. Still holding a grudge from the night before, Michel didn't even bother to greet them with words; he just shot a glare in Cassandra's direction.

"Good morning," Cassandra said. "Is the puppy still alive?"

"Yes, no thanks to you," Michel drawled.

"Okay, well, um…Lorelai told us to come see you because I want to take the horses out."

"Fine," Michel sighed. "After their spa treatments are finished, they're all yours."

"Spa treatments?" Stone asked, his eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Yes," Michel said, as if there were nothing odd about that at all. He clicked around on the computer in front of him and pulled up the horses' schedule. "They should be done in about thirty minutes."

"Great!" Cassandra said. She started to walk towards the stairs to return to the room and grab her coat, and Stone followed.

" _Spa treatments_ for _horses_?" he asked. "The hell kind of regular spa treatment does a horse need?"

"Well, their muscles probably get sore, too," Cassandra offered with a shrug.

"This town is _nuts_ …" Stone repeated under his breath. Cassandra simply rolled her eyes and shook her head to herself as she continued to ascend the staircase.

They made their way over to the stables just as the man performing the massages on the horses was finishing up. He turned around, and they saw that it was Kirk.

"Oh, hi, Kirk," Cassandra smiled.

"Good morning," Kirk said. "Are you here to take the horses out?" Cassandra nodded. "Don't work them too hard. They're in a very relaxed state right now."

"Light trotting only, I promise," Cassandra said.

"You're the horse spa guy?" Stone asked.

"Indeed," Kirk said proudly. "I'm the best equine masseuse in the area."

"Is that because you're the only equine masseuse in the area?" Stone asked. Cassandra scoffed lightly and elbowed his side. "I thought you were running that festival or something?"

"Yes," Kirk said, offering no other explanation. "Have a good day."

Stone looked at Cassandra as the inn employee in charge of the stables started getting the horses ready for them to ride. "So he works for the town and does equine spa services?" Stone asked skeptically.

"He kind of does everything," Cassandra shrugged.

Once they got out on the trail, the horses walked slowly along the dirt path, Cassandra and Stone on their backs. Cassandra had giggled with delight when they started – she hadn't ridden a horse since she was a child, she'd told him – and though she still seemed sad, Stone thought the trip to Stars Hollow had done more good than not.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked. "Back to the hospital this afternoon?"

"God no," Cassandra said. Realizing that probably came out wrong, she quickly amended her statement. "I mean…I just mean…no, you don't have to. Please go do something fun! Go to a museum, or hang out here in town. Lorelai can point you towards some great stuff to do. Just please do something that is not miserable hospital stuff."

"Okay," Stone agreed. "If you're alright."

"Very alright," she said. When she looked over at him, though, the desolation in her eyes told a different story. "You told Baird," she said simply. Stone was quiet in response, offering a simple nod. "You think I betrayed you again."

"No," Stone said quickly. "No, nothin' like that."

"Then why'd you tell her?" Cassandra asked.

"I'm just worried, you know, after the whole thing with DOSA…we almost lost the Library, Cass," he said.

"I know," she said. "My parents and DOSA aren't really comparable, though."

"No, they ain't," Stone agreed. "Baird get mad at you?"

"Not really," Cassandra replied.

"You're still stuck on what your mama said," Stone realized.

"Wouldn't you be?" Cassandra asked. "If it came from your father?"

"Probably," Stone admitted. "He gets to me more than I like to admit."

Silence fell over them again as they rode along the trail. Their pace remained slow; the snow had stopped, but the air was still cold, their breaths just slightly materializing in front of them when they spoke. Before he could say anything else, the muffled sound of the text tone on Cassandra's phone punctuated the still atmosphere.

Cassandra stopped her horse; Stone did, too. She pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and checked the text. Her whole body froze as she stared at her phone screen for a few moments. She blinked a few times at the message before returning the phone to her pocket with a single heavy breath. Picking up the reins, she signaled the horse to start walking again. Stone matched her pace and looked at her carefully.

"Cassie?" he finally asked.

"My father's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "I guess we should probably go back to the inn soon."

"Whoa, Cassandra," Stone said. They stopped their horses again. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she said, finally looking at Stone. "That's all she said. 'Your father is dead. Are you coming back?' She didn't even ask where I was. Well…she probably knows where I am. Run away once, it's a mystery, but the second time…"

"I'm so sorry," Stone said quietly.

"I'm fine," Cassandra insisted. She had descended into her quick, jovial speech again; Stone nearly winced, knowing by now that that meant she was far from fine. "I read his chart. I knew it was coming. He knows…he knew…that I'm okay now, and we talked, so it's…I'm fine." After a beat, she added, "I told you it wasn't going to matter that he knows about the Library."

"That…really ain't important right now," Stone said.

She took the reins again and signaled the horse to start walking, taking up a quicker pace than they'd moved thus far. Stone followed a few steps behind her.

"Shouldn't we turn around?" he asked.

"Probably," Cassandra said. "But I just want to keep riding right now."

* * *

When they finally made it back to the Dragonfly Inn, a full hour after receiving the text, Lorelai saw them enter through the front door and excitedly walked over to ask them about their ride. Stone frowned and shook his head as he saw her happily approaching.

"Hey, welcome back! How was the…" Lorelai started. When she finally caught site of Stone's gestures, she trailed off from her original question.

"I need to get back to Hartford," Cassandra said. "Do you know when the next bus back to Hartford is? I know when they come here, but the other way around…I can't remember."

"What happened?" Lorelai asked with concern. When Cassandra didn't answer her and let her eyes travel across the room before meeting Lorelai's, she understood. " _Oh honey_ …I'll take you home."

"No," Cassandra said quickly, pursing her lips as the syllable slipped from her lips. She shook her head for further emphasis and said, "No, you're working. You don't have time to…"

"I own this place," Lorelai reminded her. "I'll make time for whatever I want. Let's go."

"Okay, just…let me get my purse," she said, conceding to help.

Cassandra walked up the stairs, and Lorelai turned to Stone. "How's she doing?"

"She's been like that since the text, so I think she's doing badly," Stone said.

"Her mother _text_ her that information?" Lorelai asked. Stone nodded. "Well, at least the dislike she has for me is mutual."

Cassandra came back down, descending the stairs quickly, her bag slung across her shoulder. "You really don't have to take me," she said again. "I mean, your mother is there, and my mother is there, so…"

"Oh no, Cassandra," Lorelai said with a laugh. "I'm not going in. I'm dropping you and running. In fact, you better start perfecting your roll out of a moving vehicle because that's how much I'm _not_ going inside with you." She snickered. "My god, can you imagine what would happen if I went in there with you?"

" _You ran away to Lorelai…_ " Cassandra said, mocking her mother's voice.

" _You always run away to Lorelai…_ " Lorelai added, matching Cassandra's tone.

"Never mind the fact that I didn't even know Lorelai the first time I ended up here," Cassandra said to Stone.

"Oh, no, no," Lorelai said. "Facts don't matter to these people. They're like the government. They like _alternative_ facts."

Cassandra nodded. When Stone simply shot Cassandra a forced smile in return, she, again, told him to not just sit in the inn all day. Once he promised he wouldn't, she handed over the key to their room and followed Lorelai outside.

"Thank you again," she said. "You're always saving me."

"Hasn't been that long since my dad…" Lorelai reminded her. "I know how it feels."

"We had that moment, though," Cassandra said. "You know, that cliché hospital moment. I mean, he _scolded_ me several times during our last conversation, but ultimately, it ended nicely. Better than I always thought it might when I thought our situations would be reversed, anyway."

"That's nice," Lorelai said. "I didn't get that with my dad. I wish I had gotten that with my dad."

"I'm glad your mom is there with mine right now," Cassandra said honestly.

"Me too," Lorelai said with a sad smile. "Let's get you home."

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! Next chapter sooner, I promise!_


	8. Chapter 7

_Rory Gilmore sat on her side of the long dinner table in her grandparents' home. She never quite knew how to predict how the weekly Friday Night Dinner would go. Sometimes everything was great; sometimes it was nothing but problems, and sometimes it was somewhere in between. That night was turning out to be nothing but problems. The teenager had no idea what her mother and grandmother were upset about this time; the fight must have preceded dinner, but they had been at the table for nearly twenty minutes, and nobody had said a word. Lorelai and Emily both looked angry, and her grandfather always acted like he didn't even notice something was going on, leaving Rory stuck in the middle and stuck in silence._

" _Well, fine," Emily finally said, looking at her daughter. "If you're not going to talk, I'll just pretend you're not here."_

" _I'm not the only one not talking, Mom," Lorelai said. "Rory's not talking, either."_

" _Let's leave Rory out of this!" Rory piped in._

" _Richard, how was your day?" Emily asked, ignoring the girls who sat in between them._

" _It was fine," Richard Gilmore said. "I was actually meaning to tell you that I saw Tom at the club this afternoon."_

" _Has there been any news?" Emily asked hopefully._

" _Not yet," Richard said._

" _Have they called the police yet?" Emily asked._

" _Oh, Tom says there's no need for that," Richard said._

" _What on Earth does that mean?" Emily asked. "She's a child!"_

" _He said Connie says she just knows she's alright, the same way she just suddenly knew the headaches weren't simply headaches," Richard said. "They just don't know where she is."_

" _Well, that's ridiculous," Emily said. "They should call the police."_

" _I agree, but there seems to be no convincing him," Richard said._

" _How are they doing otherwise?" Emily asked._

" _He said Connie's finally made it back to her office," Richard said. "She's barely been out of the house until now. He seems to be working extra hours to keep his mind off of it."_

" _That hardly seems possible after he threw himself into work when they found out."_

" _Who are we talking about?" Lorelai finally asked._

" _You know Tom and Connie," Emily said._

" _Uh, no, I don't," Lorelai said._

" _Yes, you do," Emily insisted. "You've met them many times. They have a daughter Rory's age."_

" _Mom, I seriously have no idea who you're talking about," Lorelai said._

" _None whatsoever?" Emily asked._

" _Couldn't pick 'em out of a police lineup if my life depended on it."_

 _Emily sighed. "The Cillians are old friends whose only daughter recently received a rather devastating medical diagnosis," she said. At that, with the added inclusion of the family's last name, Lorelai froze in place at her seat, her eyes remaining firmly on her plate. "And earlier," Emily continued. "At the start of summer, their daughter just up and left, kind of like how_ you _just up and left when Rory was a baby."_

" _Okay, how long have you been sitting on_ that _one?" Lorelai asked._

" _Anyway, they told her she couldn't go back to school because of her condition, the poor thing, and they haven't seen her since that afternoon," Emily finished. Lorelai awkwardly put her fork down and folded her arms on the table in front of her plate. Rory, across the table, noticed her mother's odd behavior and frowned._

" _What, um…how old is she?" Lorelai asked._

" _Sixteen," Emily said. "Why'd you stop eating? Is something wrong with the food?"_

" _No, oh…no," Lorelai said. "That's just…that's horrible."_

 _As soon as Lorelai and Rory got in Lorelai's Jeep to return to Stars Hollow, Rory turned to face her mother and said, "What was that?"_

" _What was what?" Lorelai asked innocently._

"That _. At dinner. When Grandma and Grandpa were talking about the missing girl. You flinched," Rory said._

" _I did not flinch," Lorelai insisted._

" _Well, maybe it wasn't a flinch, but it was definitely something. What happened?"_

" _Oh, I…just…well…I think that missing girl is my new maid," Lorelai said._

"What _?" Rory exclaimed._

" _Her last name's Cillian, and the story fits…"_

" _What do you mean 'the story fits'?"_

" _Well, I walked into Luke's the other day, and there was this girl in a school uniform – not Chilton, but the school I went to, and Hartford private school girls don't end up in Stars Hollow alone very often, and we got to talking, and she started crying about how it was all screwed up, and what was she going to do because she couldn't go back to school, and now she couldn't go home, either, and I thought she was pregnant…"_

" _You thought she was pregnant?" Rory asked._

" _Consider the circumstances," Lorelai said._

" _Okay…fine. How did she end up working at the inn?" Rory asked._

" _She told me about her diagnosis and getting pulled out of school. I can't believe she told a complete stranger that, but I think she needed someone to talk to, and I needed a new maid, so I offered her a job!" Lorelai said._

" _Mom!" Rory cried. "You have to send her home."_

" _I do not," Lorelai said._

" _Her parents have no idea where she is."_

" _I didn't know that, but my parents didn't know where we were for a while."_

" _Mom, she's my age! What would you do if you didn't know where I was?"_

" _I would be devastated," Lorelai said. "But, look, it's not my place to send her home. What would I have done if Mia had sent me home, huh? You and I would not be where we are today, so I'll tell her to let them know she's okay, but if Cassandra wants to go home, Cassandra will have to make the decision to go home. Until then, I'm going to help her."_

" _Mom!" Rory said again._

" _Rory."_

" _But…"_

" _I'm paying it forward, kid. Let it go."_

* * *

The Jeep pulled into the circular driveway outside of the Cillian house, and Lorelai leaned forward, staring out the window in awe. "Wow," she said. "This place got _bigger_? Or did we just get smaller?"

Cassandra, typing a text on her phone, chuckled. "It's bigger," she said. She suddenly gasped, clasping her hands into fists near her face.

"What did you do?" Lorelai asked dreadfully.

"Well, Mom just text me asking when I was going to show up, and I could, like, _hear_ the annoyance dripping from the words on the screen, and I kind of…" Cassandra said, cringing. She trailed off and held out her phone to Lorelai.

"You told her I was with you?" Lorelai exclaimed, reading the conversation between Cassandra and her mother. "Now I have to go in there!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Cassandra said.

"Do you remember the last time we were all together?" Lorelai asked.

"Yes," Cassandra groaned.

"Your mother clearing that table made Stanley Kowalski seem tame," Lorelai said.

"I know," Cassandra replied.

"It was _World War III_ in the Gilmore house!" Lorelai continued.

"You don't have to come in," Cassandra said. "I'll tell them you had to go back to work."

"No," Lorelai groaned. "Let's get this over with."

Cassandra, having finally swiped the spare key from her mother's bedroom the day before, let them in through the front door. Their mothers were in the room just off from the foyer, and the women hung back, taking their time hanging their coats, listening.

"See? She's with Lorelai," Connie said, tossing her phone onto the couch.

"They're a lot alike, our girls," Emily said.

"Yeah, well, at least Lorelai finally grew up," Connie said. "I don't know what sort of nonsense she told Tom, or maybe he was the one talking nonsense this morning, I don't know, but apparently Cassandra still thinks _magic_ is real."

In the foyer, Cassandra's eyes widened. Lorelai chuckled and looked over at Cassandra. Seeing her startled reaction, Lorelai's mouth dropped a little again.

" _Magic_ ," Connie mumbled. "We didn't even do Santa Claus in this house."

At the mention of Santa Claus, Cassandra folded her arms and rolled her eyes, willing herself to keep her thoughts of _'also totally real_ ' inside of her head. Lorelai leaned into her.

"Magic?" Lorelai asked in a hushed tone.

"It's nothing," Cassandra said, a little too quickly.

"What kind of magic?" Lorelai asked. "Like lame _abracadabra_ magic or spell-casting, _Harry Potter_ magic?"

"Neither," Cassandra said. "Nothing."

"Do you have a wand?" Lorelai asked. "What's it made of?"

"I do not have a wand," Cassandra said.

"Is that why you moved to Portland?" Lorelai asked. "Did you join a coven?"

"Oh my god…" Cassandra muttered.

"Sorry, I'll stop," Lorelai promised. "Oh, wait, wait, one more. That old guy you have a crush on – is he Merlin? He's Merlin, isn't he?"

"No; I am," Cassandra said, calling Lorelai's bluff. "He's a Knight from King Arthur's Round Table."

"What?" Lorelai said, immediately dropping the teasing.

Cassandra grinned. "You done?"

"Yes," Lorelai promised, pouting slightly at being the butt of a joke that, unbeknownst to her, wasn't really a joke at all.

"Look at her," Cassandra said, disgusted. "Her husband just died, and she's sitting in there laughing and drinking wine and criticizing me. How could she _do_ that?"

Lorelai grabbed her arm and said, "Hey, word of advice?" Cassandra nodded and turned to face her. "Mom and I were kind of at odds when my dad died. We had a Rory as a buffer, sometimes, but you don't have that, and it's just not worth it to lash out at each other. Not right now. I know things are awful, but you're all each other has right now."

"That's a depressing thought," Cassandra muttered.

"There you are," Connie called, having finally noticed their daughters' presence in the foyer. Lorelai and Cassandra shared a look and walked into the room. "How was Stars Hollow?"

"It was nice," Cassandra said.

"Nice of Lorelai to bring you back this time," Connie said. Cassandra rolled her eyes again and glanced at Lorelai, who almost imperceptibly shook her head no, telling Cassandra to let it go.

On her eye roll, Cassandra had caught sight of a family photo in the corner of the room – a framed photograph, hanging by the window, of Cassandra and her parents from the summer before everything went south between them. They were posed in one of those typical poses that photographers always put families in, but despite the forced positions, Cassandra thought they still looked happy. It then occurred to her that the photograph had captured one of the last moments that they _were_ that happy little family, and she'd officially lost her chance of having something a small little part of her always hoped she might get back. Her blue eyes finally began to well up with tears – from lost opportunities, from guilt and regret, from the simple realization that she was never going to hear him call her _sweetheart_ again - and she completely missed what her mother said.

"Cassandra, I'm talking to you," Connie said, as if she were already losing patience with her daughter. " _Cassandra_!"

"What? Um…I'm…" Cassandra stuttered, her voice shaking. "I'm sorry."

With one more glance at the picture on the wall, Cassandra turned around and headed for the stairs, wanting to disappear into the solitude of her childhood bedroom. Lorelai watched with sympathy as she left, and Connie asked Lorelai if she wanted a drink, deciding it best to just let Cassandra be for a little while.

"Oh, no thanks. I can only stay another minute. I've got to get back to work," Lorelai said. "But I'm very sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

Connie took a breath and sat down next to Emily. "No," she said sincerely. "Bringing Cassandra back was help enough. Thank you."

"Where is her friend?" Emily asked.

"At the inn," Lorelai said. "Or somewhere back in Stars Hollow. She told him to do something fun today."

"So she's planning on going back," Connie realized.

"Well, you know, Stars Hollow is kind of your hometown Brigadoon," Lorelai joked. "If someone leaves, we all might just vanish."

It was Emily's turn to roll her eyes; though she was used to Lorelai's jokes, she would never understand why Lorelai always had to employ one at the exact wrong moment. Connie simply blinked at her, wine glass paused halfway to her mouth.

" _O-kay_ ," Lorelai said, her joke falling flat. She vaguely pointed out of the room and said, "I'm just gonna…"

* * *

Back in Stars Hollow, Stone had made his way back to the town square, and the little antique shop had caught his eye. He'd been there for a little while, browsing the bottom floor of the shop/house. While checking out some of the items towards the back of the house, he heard the shop's owner, Mrs. Kim, raise her voice.

"You touch, you _buy_!" she called.

A very familiar voice argued back, "Isn't it 'you _break_ , you buy?' I'm not breaking anything!"

" _Seriously_?" Stone muttered to himself, making his way back to the front. Ezekiel Jones and Mrs. Kim were standing face-to-face, Ezekiel towering over her. Mrs. Kim didn't let that intimate her.

"This is _my_ shop, and _I_ make the rules, and I don't like how you're touching the antiques!" she argued. "They're old. They should be respected."

Ezekiel grinned a mischievous little grin and said, "I respect the integrity of valuable goods. Believe me, we've got no problem there."

" _Jones_!" Stone finally called, weaving his way through the maze of antiques to reach them. Surprise registered on Ezekiel's face, and Mrs. Kim turned to look at him, too.

"You know him?" Mrs. Kim asked Stone.

"Yeah, I got it," Stone said.

Mrs. Kim turned back to Ezekiel. "I'm watching you," she said sternly. " _Both_ of you." She slowly started making her way out of the room, but rather than turn around, she walked backwards, her eyes never leaving the Librarians.

"Okay, so she's little scary," Ezekiel said in a hushed voice.

"Come on," Stone said. He pushed Ezekiel's shoulder to turn the younger man around. Once they had exited the shop, he asked, "Don't you, of all people, know better than to try stealin' from a Korean woman?"

"I didn't know she was Korean!" Ezekiel replied. "I thought the Kim in Kim's Antiques was a _first_ name!"

"What are you doing here?" Stone asked.

"Baird and Flynn came back from vacation, so I am free to roam as I want," Ezekiel said. "And Baird immediately decided we needed do some sort of weird training exercise, so I definitely want."

As they walked down the street towards the rest of town, Kirk started circling them on a bicycle, a passenger cart dragging behind him.

"Where are you going?" Kirk asked.

"Uh…not really sure," Stone said.

"I could take you," Kirk said. "I'm cheaper than a regular Uber, you know."

"We don't need an Uber," Stone said. "We're just wanderin'."

"Fine. Suit yourself," Kirk said. He wheeled off to solicit some other walkers.

"Who was that?" Ezekiel asked.

"Kirk," Stone said. "Seen him a few times."

"He's a…bicycle Uber?" Ezekiel said.

"I honestly can't figure out what he is," Stone said.

"So this is small town America, huh?" Ezekiel asked, looking around the town square.

"A really strange version of it," Stone replied.

"I can't help but notice that this isn't Hartford," Ezekiel said.

"No, it ain't," Stone said. "Wait, how'd you get here?"

"Tracked the GPS on your phones," Ezekiel shrugged. "Where's Cassandra?"

"Home," Stone said. "Her dad…"

Ezekiel was quiet for a long moment before he delicately asked, "She doing the fast talk caffeine thing…?"

"Yeah," Stone said. "She'll be back tonight."

Ezekiel nodded. "How'd you two end up here?"

"Cass used to live here," Stone said. "Her mama…I don't completely know what happened yesterday, but she was upset."

They walked by the gazebo in the middle of the town square, and two older women dressed in colorful, bold patterns stopped them, stepping in the line of their path.

"Oh, my, my…" Miss Patty said, looking the Librarians up and down. Stone and Ezekiel shared an uncomfortable look. "Who do we have here?"

"Yeah, we haven't seen you around here before!" Babette added.

"No, I'd definitely remember men as scrumptious as you two," Miss Patty said.

"Uh, we're from out of town," Stone offered.

"Oh, _right_ , you're Cassandra's mysterious cowboy," Miss Patty realized.

"Oh yeah, from the diner! The windows kind of distort things sometimes, you know," Babette said. She looked at Miss Patty and said, "He's probably not really _Cassandra's_ , though, remember? If that rumor was really true…"

"Of course it was true," Miss Patty said.

"What…rumor?" Stone asked, sharing a look with Ezekiel. Both found it hard to believe that Cassandra could ever be the subject of town gossip, after maybe her initial arrival, of course.

"Cassandra had this roommate," Babette said. "Cute little college girl that worked with Lorelai. We always thought they were _something something_ , you know, but they were sneaky. _God_ , were they sneaky!"

Stone and Ezekiel shared another look. The prospect of Cassandra being the subject of town gossip was getting a little more believable.

"Times were different then," Miss Patty pointed out.

"Taylor Doose said he saw them kissing once at this very festival, but that's Taylor, you know?" Babette said. "So maybe it was a kiss, or maybe it wasn't. It doesn't take much to rile that one up! We never did find out for sure if it was true."

"And believe me, we tried," Miss Patty said.

"Even Lorelai wouldn't tell us!" Babette said.

"She mention anything to you?" Miss Patty asked.

"She mentioned a girl she lived wi…" Stone started. He realized what he was saying, grimaced, and yelled, " _No_ , man, I'm not getting caught up in this town gossip!"

"Well, we'll hope it was true and she doesn't have any claim on you," Miss Patty said, nearly purring as she stepped closer to Jacob.

Stone, without thinking, replied, "Cassandra don't have any claim on…"

Ezekiel, realizing quickly where this would be headed if Stone completed that thought, yelled, "But I do!" He linked arms with Stone, tilted his head towards the older man's shoulder, and said, "Sorry, ladies, he's taken."

Miss Patty looked vaguely disappointed as Babette's face lit up. "Oh my god, Patty, get a load of that _accent_!" Babette exclaimed, and Ezekiel immediately regretted opening his mouth.

"And where are you from, darling?" Miss Patty asked, turning her attention to him.

"Far away from here, which is where we're going," Ezekiel declared. Pulling on the arm of Stone's that was linked with his, he started hurriedly traveling away from the townswomen.

"What the hell, man?" Stone asked, pointing to their joined arms.

"I just saved your ass," Ezekiel said. "A little thank you would be nice. Unless you _want_ a piece of that, in which case, by all means, go back and tell them I was lying."

"You just made _us_ the subject of the town gossip, which is gonna be pretty interestin' when you presumably go back home in a few hours!" Stone pointed out.

Ezekiel looked concerned as he realized the truth behind Jacob's assumption. "I…didn't really think about…"

"Yeah, because you never think, do you, Jones? You just do," Stone sighed.

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Just _let her_ be the filling in a Librarian sandwich?" Ezekiel asked. Stone shot him a look. "Oh come on, you know that's where that was going. This town is _nuts._ "

"No kiddin'," Stone mumbled, finally unlinking their arms.

"Is there anywhere _sane_ to go to lunch here?" Ezekiel asked.

"There's a diner labeled as a hardware store or a pancake world that apparently serves international food," Stone offered.

" _What_?" Ezekiel asked.

"I don't know, man," Stone laughed.

* * *

A light knocking on her bedroom door drew Cassandra's eyes to the barricaded doorway. "Who is it?" she mumbled.

"It's Lorelai," Lorelai said.

Cassandra told her to come in, and Lorelai found her sitting on the floor, in the small corner formed from her bed and the little bench in front of it. Her legs were outstretched in front on her, and her head was lolled back against her bed, as if holding it up was simply too exhausting. Cassandra's eyes were bleary and wet from the crying that had since ceased, and Lorelai stepped further inside, hesitant and a little leery of what to do. Cassandra crying wasn't a sight she'd seen often, despite their first meeting at Luke's and the tender age at which Cassandra had come into her life.

"I'm heading home. I just wanted to check on you before I left," Lorelai said softly.

"Would you mind taking Jacob his stuff?" Cassandra asked. "I'll bring mine back later."

"Of course," Lorelai said. "No problem."

"And can I ask you a question about dealing with…this?" Cassandra asked.

Lorelai sunk down onto the little bench in front of Cassandra's bed. "Of course," she said again. Cassandra's eyes found her, her head not moving at all.

"How long does it take to stop feeling guilty?" Cassandra asked quietly. "For leaving the way I did…for everything I did to hurt him. I mean…he died thinking he failed me because of what I did. So…how long?"

"Never," Lorelai sighed.

Cassandra turned her head to look at Lorelai as new tears welled up in her eyes. " _Never_?"

"Well…maybe not never, but if the guilt stops, I'm not there yet, either," Lorelai told her.

Cassandra nodded and sighed, looking away from Lorelai again. She drew her knees up to her chest, making herself as small as possible in that corner of the floor as her face crumbled again. Suddenly feeling like she'd just made everything worse, Lorelai sighed and rested her hand on Cassandra's shoulder as she leaned forward and cried into her knees.

"I thought you had to go," Cassandra said, her voice muffled by her position.

"I can stay a few more minutes," Lorelai promised.

* * *

Lorelai returned to Stars Hollow with Stone's bag from the Cillian residence later that afternoon. She walked through the front door of the Dragonfly and headed for the stairs to return the bag to its rightful owner before she found the man in question sitting downstairs, nose in a book. Lorelai walked over, her arms out in a shrug.

"Hey," Lorelai said, drawing Stone's attention. "You're supposed to be out doing something fun."

"Yeah, I tried that," Stone said. Ezekiel had bailed about an hour earlier, declaring Stars Hollow to be much scarier than anything Baird could cook up after witnessing a fight between Luke and the aforementioned Taylor Doose in the diner, leaving Stone to return to the Dragonfly alone. "Kirk kept circling around me on a bicycle with a cart attached to it askin' where I needed to go. What does…what does he actually do?"

Lorelai chuckled. "He kind of does everything."

"That's what Cassie said," Stone said. "Then I ran into…the dance teacher?"

"Miss Patty," Lorelai said.

"Yeah, and her friend…"

"Babette."

Stone briefly recapped the run-in with Miss Patty and Babette for Lorelai, leaving out the magical reappearance and disappearance of Ezekiel from Portland; Lorelai laughed and cringed all at the same time, hearing an all-too-familiar tale of young men caught in Miss Patty's crosshairs. Stone then described the screaming match between her husband and Taylor Doose about window clings Taylor had displayed on the window between Luke's Diner and Taylor's Old-Fashioned Soda Shoppe and said, "And that's when I figured I just might be safer here."

"Oh, I can't believe I missed that!" Lorelai exclaimed with disappointment. "He is so going to have to re-enact that for me later."

"That's a regular thing, the public fights between them?" Stone asked.

"Only on days that end in _y_ ," Lorelai teased. Stone got a look on his face that told Lorelai he thought they were crazy, and she said, "We're a little like the Island of Misfit Toys here, but everyone here means well, I promise."

"Yeah, I can see why Cassandra liked it here," he admitted.

"It's not a bad place to run away to," Lorelai said.

"Can I ask you about that?" Stone asked.

"Sure," Lorelai said. "You walked into a very messy situation here."

"I got that," Stone chuckled. "What's the history between Cassandra and your mom? She kinda freaked when she was the one who greeted us the other day."

"Nothing, really," Lorelai shrugged. "Cassandra eventually told her parents where she'd landed but not what she was doing, so when the emancipation proceedings happened, the Cillians saw my name on all the employment verification paperwork, called the Gilmores, and all hell broke loose. My mother was put into the position of both completely agreeing with Mrs. Cillian but also having to defend me against her. It was one of those situations that just kind of _is_ , you know, but Cassandra felt guilty for causing all the upset. That's about it, really."

"What was she like?" Stone asked. "Back then, I mean."

"She was quiet," Lorelai said. "Vivacious, but timid, and brave. _God_ , so brave."

"Sounds about right," Stone chuckled. "How's she doing now?"

"She'll be okay," Lorelai promised.

* * *

Cassandra finally emerged from her room that evening. She hadn't eaten since breakfast at the Dragonfly, so she came out seeking food and a good drink. One of the staircases in the spacious home landed just near the kitchen, so Cassandra headed for that one instead of the stairs nearest her room. To get to those stairs, however, she had to pass her parents' bedroom. As she approached, she could hear her mother crying behind the closed door, and her stomach turned into a knot.

Emily was standing in the hallway across from the closed bedroom door, and Cassandra's mouth dropped. Already feeling a little horrified in the way that every child feels horrified when their mother is sobbing, she looked at Emily in a frustrated disbelief.

"Why are you just _standing there_?" Cassandra asked, gesturing towards the closed door.

"She kicked me out," Emily sighed.

"What, um…what exactly happened?" Cassandra asked. "She didn't really tell me when she…told me."

"Sudden cardiac death," Emily said softly. "There was nothing they could do."

"Were you there when…was _she_ there?" Cassandra asked.

Emily nodded sadly. "One minute, he was fine and talking, and the next…it was awful."

Cassandra let her eyes glaze over, standing in the hallway looking like a lost little girl for a moment as she immediately started imagining what that must have been like to be there, to witness that. She turned towards her mother's door and held out of her hand. She hesitated for just a moment, then curled her hand around the knob.

"She said she didn't want anyone," Emily said.

"I'm not anyone," Cassandra replied.

Emily nodded and pushed herself off the wall. "Come get me if you need me."

Cassandra nodded. "Thank you," she said.

Emily headed for her designated guest room, and Cassandra slowly opened her mother's door, creeping into the darkened room. Her mother was lying on her side under the bed covers, facing away from the middle of the bed and away from the side Cassandra approached. Connie's arms were curled underneath the pillow that was catching her tears. If she noticed Cassandra's entrance, she didn't move to acknowledge her. Cassandra paused at the opposite side of the bed.

"Mom?" Cassandra asked softly, fighting back tears of her own.

Cassandra stood awkwardly at the edge of the mattress, pulling at the edges of her sleeves, unsure of what to do next. When she didn't get an answer, Cassandra carefully lifted the covers on the other side of the bed and crawled in, deciding to just simply _be there_ if her mother decided she didn't want to be alone. Her own heart ached; she couldn't imagine how her mother was feeling. She half expected to be yelled at for invading space that used to belong to her father, but silence prevailed, and her actions spurred no protests, so Cassandra settled onto her side, letting her head sink into the pillows as she watched Connie's back.

After a few minutes, Cassandra caught a movement out of the corner of her eye as she carefully perused her own fingernails. She was channeling her energy into not picking at the nail polish that was starting to flake off of her pointer finger in an effort to pass the time, tune out the gut-wrenching sounds of her mother's sobs, and keep herself from falling apart, too. Her eyes traveled from her fingertip to her mother's back as Connie let one of her arms fall behind her, her hand open and outstretched, seeking Cassandra's. Without hesitation, Cassandra's own arm shot forward, and Connie's fingers tightly curled around her daughter's hand. A small smile teased the edges of Cassandra's lips as she closed her eyes.


	9. Chapter 8

_Cassandra and Marcie were sitting on a bench in the middle of the Stars Hollow town square. It was dark outside, but the town was busy as the Firelight Festival was in full swing. They'd reached the part of the festivities where the town leaders were standing in the gazebo arguing about whose responsibility it was to bring the supplies to start the bonfire and lamenting how they couldn't believe this was happening again (even though everyone in Stars Hollow knew it would.) The girls had been sitting close, cuddled together on the bench, but when joking about how silly they'd been for worrying about being late for a fire that_ always _started late had turned into a nervous confession, Cassandra jumped back away from the older girl._

" _San Francisco?" Cassandra asked in disbelief. "Why did you…why did you apply for a job in San Francisco? I thought you were only looking around the Northeast."_

" _I was," Marcie said. She was three months away from graduating college, the Independence Inn was gone, and both girls were beginning to consider what might be next for them, individually and together. "And I didn't! I…I applied for a job in their Philadelphia office, but they're a national company, and they offered me a job in San Francisco instead."_

" _Wow," Cassandra muttered quietly. "I mean, congratulations. That's amazing. Do you…do you still want it in California?"_

" _Yeah, I kind of do, Cass. I probably wouldn't even have mentioned it if I didn't," Marcie admitted. Cassandra smiled sadly before taking up a sudden interest in her own hands sitting in her lap. Marcie covered those hands with one of hers and said, "But you'll come with me, right?"_

" _I can't," Cassandra said instinctively. "Dr. Nassir…he's in New York."_

" _There are doctors in San Francisco," Marcie pointed out._

" _Yeah, I know, but…it's just…California, Marcie. That's so far," Cassandra said. "I think that's just too far."_

" _Too far from what?" Marcie asked, a hint of anger and impatience in her voice. "The parents you don't talk to?"_

 _Cassandra opened her mouth to respond but quickly found that she didn't really have any words. She closed her mouth on a small sigh and held Marcie's gaze for a few moments before turning her eyes back to her hands. Marcie's face fell, too, as a quiet sadness lingered in the air between them. Marcie closed her eyes and shook her head._

" _Okay," Marcie said. "Okay, you know what? You're right. There are doctors in San Francisco, but there are jobs in New England. The doctor's more important, so if you think he's the right one…"_

" _Take the job," Cassandra said quietly._

" _What?" Marcie asked._

" _You should take the job," Cassandra said again, a little more sure of herself._

" _In San Francisco?"_

" _Yes," Cassandra said. "It's an amazing opportunity. I don't want you to lose that, and you can't…you can't plan your life around me."_

" _But why…" Marcie asked, her voice simply training off in sorrow and confusion._

 _Cassandra's eyes filled with tears as silence lingered between them again. They both knew exactly why she couldn't plan her life around Cassandra, so finally, in a small voice, Cassandra whispered, "Please don't make me say it."_

 _The people around them started cheering, and a sudden heat burned their cooled cheeks as the bonfire finally got started. The illumination from the flames danced across their melancholy faces, and, while everyone was momentarily distracted, Cassandra leaned back towards Marcie, kissing her softly. Marcie's gloved hand cradled Cassandra's head in her palm as she kissed her back, tasting Cassandra's fallen tears on their lips. For the first time, they didn't care who could see them. The shared knowledge that this path was probably both the best and inevitable momentarily surmounted anything else. When they separated, Marcie snuggled into Cassandra's side, her head on her shoulder._

" _I don't want to talk about this anymore tonight," Marcie said, clutching Cassandra's hand in her own._

 _Cassandra let her head rest on top of her girlfriend's as they both turned to watch the fire. "We don't have to," she agreed._

* * *

Cassandra woke up alone in her parents' bedroom the next morning, her arm still outstretched from holding on to her mother's hand throughout the night. She slowly rolled out of bed and retreated to her own room, finding multiple missed calls from Stone on her phone. A little gasp escaped her lips, and she hurriedly dialed him back. He answered, his voice still gruff from the early hour.

"Hi," she said, a little awkwardly. "I'm fine. I'm at home."

"I figured," he replied.

"I just thought I should stay," she said. "And I was afraid if I came back, that…mistake from the other night might happen again, so…I meant to call. I was going to call."

"Things alright with your mom?" he asked.

"Yeah," Cassandra said, grabbing clothes from her suitcase. She held a skirt next to a sweater to see how the pieces would mix and said, "Yeah, she actually kind of let me be there for her last night. Still plenty of sighing yesterday, but that's something."

"That's definitely somethin'," he agreed.

"Anyway, I'm going to go tell her about me before she decides to hate me again, but I just wanted you to know that I'm okay," Cassandra said.

"See you later?" Stone asked.

"Definitely," she promised.

She quickly put on actual clothing and headed downstairs. Her mother had always hated pajamas at the breakfast table, and she had a promise to fulfill for her father, so she didn't want to start the conversation with a trivial fight. Connie glanced up and down Cassandra's body a few times and rolled her eyes, and a sense that she was walking into a losing battle overcame Cassandra as she nodded a hello to Emily and headed for the chair that always used to be hers.

"Something wrong?" Cassandra asked as she sat down, placing the cloth napkin over her lap. Carlita came out almost immediately with a glass of orange juice, and she smiled in thanks.

"Do you always look like you're going to a child's birthday party?" Connie sighed.

Cassandra resisted the urge to roll her eyes, too, and glanced down at her clothes. She was wearing a bright green sweater over a white button-down shirt with a kitten collar pin and a knee-length pencil skirt covered in red and pink roses. She thought she had been rather conservative. "I have a darker outfit upstairs, but it's the only one I have, so unless you'd like me to wear that for the next four or five days…" Cassandra started.

"It's fine," Connie sighed. "It's good you're here. Emily was just telling me what to expect in terms of finances. Did you have any idea how expensive it is to have a funeral?"

"I've heard it's pretty steep," Cassandra replied.

"Your father's estate will pay for it, of course," Connie explained. "Our wills state that everything goes to the other upon the first death, outside of a few specific individual bequeaths. There are some charities he wanted to leave money to, and I suspect he's left you a sum of money, but even if he hasn't, I want to make sure you get something now. How much of your trust fund do you have left?"

Cassandra cringed. "Um…" she stalled.

"A percentage is fine," Connie said.

Cassandra had figured out the math in an instant; she just didn't want to have to give her mother the answer she'd arrived at. "About…13 percent."

"There's only 13 percent _left_?" Connie clarified. Cassandra cringed again, and Connie's glare hardened. She could do math, too, and even though Cassandra had gained access to the trust fund about nine years before she was supposed to, she'd never thought of her daughter as _irresponsible_. " _Cassandra Cillian_! What on Earth did you spend _that_ much money on?"

"Medical bills," Cassandra said with a shrug. She decided to skip specifically accounting for the frivolous chunk that now resided in her closet and added, "And living expenses when I was too sick to work."

Connie sighed, conceding that that was an acceptable answer. "So it's all gone?" she asked, her tone much less stern.

"No, not _all_ gone. There's a little left, but there's probably a deductible I'm going to have to pay off soon," Cassandra said.

Connie sighed again. "I had no idea your medical expenses have been that extensive."

"Just the medications were a couple thousand a year," Cassandra said.

" _Were_?" Connie asked.

Cassandra took a deep breath. She said, almost meekly, "That's actually something I have to tell you." With a hopeful smile, she said, "I don't have a brain tumor anymore."

Across the table from her, Emily's face lit up with surprise, her lips curving into a smile. Cassandra's face lit up a little bit brighter at Emily's reaction, and she glanced at her mother, wanting to share the excitement with her, too. At the end of the table, however, Connie had frozen in place and simply stared at her daughter, her mind empty, the gaze only punctuated by a few blinks. Cassandra's face sobered, and she folded her hands on the table in front of her.

"I had surgery," Cassandra continued. "It could come back…maybe, someday, but right now, it's gone, and I never really thought it would be gone, so that's all that matters, and um…can you say something, please?" She had been watching her mother's unchanging face as she talked, and she finally needed just a little bit of a reaction.

Connie didn't realize how long she'd been silent. Her mind was swimming in flashes of memories – when she ordered Tom to find a neurologist for Cassandra, when her stomach dropped as the doctors told her what was wrong with her daughter, when she collapsed in Tom's arms in devastated tears in the hospital elevator once Cassandra had fallen asleep, when a jolt of fear shot through her every time an unnamed phone number with a New York area code tried to get in contact with her – and then she realized that the young woman sitting before her wasn't the picture of someone who'd _newly_ had brain surgery. Recovery was an ordeal, she knew. It had been a while.

"When did this happen?" Connie finally asked.

"A few months ago," Cassandra said.

"And you decided to wait until _now_ to tell me?" Connie asked.

"Well, I…" Cassandra started.

Before she could defend herself any further, Connie pushed her chair back from the table, and sneered, "You just had to make this about you, didn't you?"

Even Emily looked shocked as a stunned Cassandra replied, "Wait… _what_?"

" _Honestly_ , Cassandra…" Connie said with a sigh as she exited the room.

As soon as she had left, Cassandra got what little bit of her bearings she could gather and looked, wide-eyed and near speechless, to Emily. She suddenly had no recollection of what she had just told the room so she stuttered, "Did I…say the right words in the right order?" Cassandra asked.

"Yes, dear. You did." Emily said sympathetically.

"She doesn't care," Cassandra realized. "I thought she would care. I thought she might be excited, even. I thought that would fix…" Cassandra let herself fall back against her chair, not finishing her foolishly childish thought. She crossed her arms against her chest, and, utterly defeated, said, "I suppose you're going to defend her now."

"I'm not sure I can," Emily said honestly. She was silent for a moment, truly at a loss concerning how to defend what had just happened, but finally, she put her fork down as well. "I yelled at Lorelai, too, after Richard died. Grief can make a person selfish. I'll talk to her."

"You'll be wasting your breath," Cassandra muttered as Emily stood and headed out.

Emily paused in the doorway to the dining room and turned back around. "Cassandra?"

Cassandra glanced at Emily with her eyes only, her slumped body still facing the table. "Yeah?" Cassandra asked.

"Congratulations," Emily said sincerely. "That's _wonderful_ news."

Cassandra let her lips curl into a small smile. "Thank you," she said softly.

* * *

Lorelai walked into Luke's for breakfast, her husband having snuck out on her long before she awoke that morning. She found Stone sitting on a stool, drinking a cup of coffee and sat at the counter with him.

"Breakfast is free with your room, you know," Lorelai teased.

Stone's arm stilled, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. "I didn't realize we were paying for the room," he admitted.

Lorelai chuckled. "You're not. I'm just teasing," she said. "So, hey, two days in town, and you already have a doppelganger!"

"What?" Stone asked.

"I walked by Miss Patty's just now, you know, to get my morning fill of town gossip, and they said they saw you holding hands with some hot young thing with a sexy accent, and it's such a shame you swung that way because Patty's never been with a cowboy before, and now she's missed her chance," Lorelai explained. "I told them it had to be someone else because you and Cassandra came all the way from Oregon, so there is no hot, foreign guy, but be warned. That's the leading scoop today."

"Great," Stone sighed, mentally cataloguing all the ways he was going to kill Ezekiel next time he saw him.

"Speaking of Cassandra, where is she?" Lorelai asked.

"Not here," Stone said.

"She didn't come back last night?" Lorelai asked.

"I think she's avoidin' me," Stone admitted.

"Because of the kiss?" Lorelai asked innocently.

Stone momentarily halted his movements again. "Is this whole town under surveillance or something?" he exclaimed.

Luke walked down from the little apartment upstairs and saw Lorelai sitting at the counter. Lorelai looked his direction and gasped, pointing at the window that separated the diner from Taylor's ice cream store next door.

"The window clings are still up!" Lorelai said with surprise. The window featured cartoon window clings made for Valentine's Day, put back up to compliment the romantic atmosphere that came with the town Firelight Festival. There was an ice cream cone with scoops shaped like hearts and two milkshakes with their straws crossed in a heart shape, but Taylor had put up ones themed to the diner, too, including a heart-shaped hamburger and a box of French fries hugging a heart in its cartoon arms.

"Of course they're still up," Luke said. "Why wouldn't they be?"

"Well, you were _very_ upset about them last night," Lorelai reminded him.

"And you told me it was stupid to be that upset about window clings," he reminded her.

"Well…" Lorelai muttered, indicating her opinion hadn't changed.

" _They're festive_ , you said. _You can't tear them down on Firelight day_ , you said. _It's a day about love, and who doesn't love ice cream and French fries_ , you said. _Do you want to be responsible for killing the spirit of love in Stars Hollow_ , you said," Luke growled. Lorelai tried to hide her giggles upon hearing Luke angrily spew her words from the previous night back at her, but she didn't do a very good job. Luke sighed and looked at the offensive window again. He muttered, "It's one thing to have the damn ice cream, but this makes it look like I'm _endorsing_ this madness. Where the hell did he even find those?"

"You can find anything on Etsy, babe," Lorelai said.

"I am tearing those down _tomorrow_ , even if I have to break the damn window again to get them off," Luke promised. He walked away in a huff, not wanting to look at that window for another second, and Lorelai turned to Stone.

"Break it _again_?" he asked.

"It's a resilient little window," Lorelai confirmed. "Is Cassandra coming back today?"

"She said she'd never miss the festival," Stone confirmed.

"So it sounds like you have some time," Lorelai said. "I'm heading over to the annex now, if you want to come? This town is a bubble. A guest's perspective might be what I need."

"Let's go check it out," Stone agreed.

* * *

Back in Hartford, Emily Gilmore knocked on Connie's bedroom door, but she walked in before she received an answer from the woman inside. She found Connie sitting reclined on her bed, her makeup smudged from previously shed tears. A half-circle of funeral home brochures and information covered the rest of the bed around her, so Emily took a seat in a chair across the room and simply looked at her friend.

"I'm alright," Connie promised.

"I know you are," Emily said. "But you have a devastated girl downstairs. You heard what she said, didn't you?"

"Of course I heard her," Connie snapped. "I shouldn't have…I'm just so _mad_ at her."

"Because of _this_?" Emily asked in disbelief.

"Well, how would you feel if you'd spent an entire week looking at the daughter you thought was about to die? Thinking about how you'd have to do all this shit with _her_ soon, and now you'd have to do it alone because your husband's not going to be around anymore?" Connie asked. She started crying again. "The timeline her original neurologist gave us is almost up, but she's been in this house for _days_ , and she didn't…it's been _months_ , and she hasn't…you don't know how that feels."

"You're right," Emily said. "I don't."

Connie rubbed her temple, a headache brewing. "Who took care of her? She couldn't have gone through something like that alone. We would have…I don't know anything about her."

"You asked me if it was hard when Lorelai came back," Emily said. "That was, the realization that I didn't know her at all anymore, but Connie, she's _here_. You can change that."

Connie sighed and put her hand to her head again. "This is a lot of change for two days."

"I know," she said sympathetically. "But this one's _good_."

Downstairs, Cassandra had found solace in her father's quiet office, letting the natural light stream in through the long, thin windows in either corner. She sat in the large office chair, spinning back and forth lightly. Her head lay back on the top of the plush cushions. One of her legs was curled underneath her body; she held the other close to her chest, her arms wrapped just under her knee. Her eyes combed the spines of the books on the very top shelves as she slowly spun around in silence before settling on the ceiling.

With a sigh, she grabbed the desk with one hand and halted the spinning of the chair. Facing one of the side walls, she kept her eyes on the ceiling as she slowly held her fists above her face. She opened her hands as she opened her arms, her face settling into contentment as the numbers, equations, and calculations filled the space between her and the high office ceiling. She didn't have anything specific to figure out at that moment, so she let her hands fall back to the armrests on the chair and simply stared at the math slowly swirling around her head. It was still overwhelming, but the equations were comforting, too.

After a few minutes, the cell phone sitting on the desk buzzed as a call came in. She glanced over at the screen, expecting to ignore whoever it was in favor of staying in her mental mathematical world, but when she saw the name and the image from so long ago on her phone, she changed her mind. Cassandra waved her hands together again, turning off the synesthetic math, and took the call. She put the phone to her ear, staying in position in her father's chair, and said, "You'll never guess where I am right now."

"You're really back in that house?" Marcie's voice asked, a hint of disbelief.

"Yeah," Cassandra laughed. She realized what Marcie had just said and leant up in the chair. "Wait. What? How do you know where I am?"

"Educated guess," Marcie teased.

"Educated?" Cassandra asked.

" _Senator Cillian is survived by his wife Constance and his daughter Cassandra_ ," Marcie read from an obituary she'd found. "I called as soon as I read it."

"What?" Cassandra asked again.

"My Google Alert on you pinged," Marcie said. "It's from the Hartford paper."

"Oh. Right. I guess that would be online by now," Cassandra said.

"I'm so sorry, Cass. How are things going there?" Marcie asked.

A sense of relief had washed over Cassandra just from talking to someone who knew her then – when she was young and the relationship with her parents was in the middle of imploding. Lorelai had known her then, too, but it was Marcie who had been there while she navigated life away from home, when she nervously called her parents to tell them she'd only run thirty minutes away, when she came home crying from the emancipation hearing, overcome with guilt for making her parents' faces look like that, when she decided she needed to stay close, despite not yet being able to bring herself to go back home.

"Things with him ended pretty well, actually," Cassandra said. "But I just told Connie about the tumor, and she said I'm making everything about me, so now I'm hiding in his office."

"So same old, same old…" Marcie said.

"Pretty much," Cassandra agreed. She thought about what Marcie had said a few moments ago and frowned. "I can't believe you have a Google Alert for me."

"Well, you never know when something interesting might pop up," Marcie said.

That's exactly what Cassandra was afraid of, given her line of work. "You should um…you should probably turn that off," she said with a little laugh.

"Never," Marcie insisted.

* * *

About an hour and a half later, Cassandra emerged from her father's office. Her bag and her coat still hung from the rack near the front door, so she headed that way, intending to grab both on her way out.

"Where are you going?" Connie's voice called across the room.

Cassandra froze. She turned around after a few seconds and found her mother sitting quietly on a couch, almost as if she'd been waiting for her. "Well," Cassandra said. "I left my friend in Stars Hollow, and I haven't seen you since breakfast, so…"

She turned to go again, and Connie called out her name. Cassandra stopped again, as her mother said, "You don't have a tumor anymore?" Her voice shook as she asked the question, and Cassandra turned around again, shaking her head silently. "Why didn't you call?"

"It was emergency surgery," Cassandra said. "I didn't have time."

"It got that close?" Connie asked solemnly. Cassandra just nodded slowly. "Well, I'd like to hear what happened, if you're willing to tell me."

Cassandra walked a little further into the room, stopping behind a chair across from where her mother sat. She held onto the back of the piece of furniture as she said, "It got bigger, _a lot_ bigger, and I wasn't…I guess I really wasn't going to do anything because I was scared of surgery, but then I met this woman who helped me not be so scared." Connie listened carefully, and Cassandra spoke softly, a hushed tone having fallen across the room. "I passed out at work, and my friend, the only one who knew what was going on, took me to the hospital, and when I came to, he basically _told_ me I was going to have the surgery, and…Mr. Jenkins isn't really the kind of person you say no to, so I did, and…"

"And you don't have a tumor anymore," Connie said, finishing Cassandra's sentence.

"No," Cassandra confirmed. Tears immediately filled Connie's eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She looked down at the hands folded in her lap as a pained sob escaped her lips, and Cassandra carefully walked over next to her, her face colored with concern. She put her hand on Connie's shoulder as she cried and said, "Mom?"

Connie stood up then, embracing Cassandra in a tight hug, another sob escaping her throat. Cassandra's eyes grew wide as her mother hugged her, the act of affection entirely unexpected.

"Oh," Cassandra said as Connie hugged her. "Oh…o-kay," she stuttered.

Cassandra hugged her back, of course, intending simply to only return the gesture, the pain of everything that had happened between them not so easily forgotten. Or so she thought, because once she was in her mother's arms again, Cassandra surprised even herself and sunk into the embrace. Connie cradled the back of Cassandra's head in her palm, and Cassandra felt herself start to tear up, too.

"You asked me something in the hospital before you left for Stars Hollow," Connie said, pulling out of the embrace. Cassandra only blinked in response. She wasn't sure she really wanted an answer to the question she'd blurted out at the height of emotion two days before. Nevertheless, Connie continued. "We would've come," she said. " _I_ would've come."

"You would've?" Cassandra asked skeptically.

"Yes," Connie said. "Whether you'd called and said you were having surgery or called and said you were…" Cassandra nodded quickly, telling her mother it was okay to stop before that sentence was finished. "So what does this mean?" she asked, switching gears. "Does math still smell like…waffles, was it?"

"And chemistry still sounds like Sinatra," Cassandra confirmed. "That wasn't the tumor. That's not…that stuff doesn't hurt me."

Connie nodded, then abruptly told Cassandra to follow her. Startled by the abrupt change in the conversation, Cassandra faltered a moment before following Connie to the master suite. Connie sat Cassandra on the bed and headed for Tom's closet. Cassandra recoiled.

"Mom, I don't want to do that yet," Cassandra said, her voice shaking.

Connie paused in the closet doorway. "I'm not getting your father's stuff," she said. "I'm getting yours."

"What?" Cassandra asked.

Connie disappeared into the closet and returned with a box. She placed it on the bed next to Cassandra and stepped back, giving her space to look through it. Cassandra peered inside the loose flaps and found everything her parents had taken the morning before she'd left home – the STEM fair trophies, the academic certificates, everything she'd worked for, everything she thought she'd never see again. She carefully pulled one of the trophies out of the box and examined it, tracing her engraved name with her fingers and twirling it around in her hands.

"You kept all this stuff," Cassandra said softly.

"We kept everything," Connie said.

"Even the note I left on my nightstand," Cassandra said.

" _Dear Mom and Dad, I'm going to figure out what to do with the rest of my time. I'm not giving up. Not yet_ ," Connie recited from memory. Cassandra stilled as she spoke. "Anyway, I thought you might like to have these things back. They're yours, after all."

Cassandra twirled the trophy around in her hand again before shaking her head and placing it back into the box. "No," she said. "You can keep them. That's…a part of my life that's over now."

"We thought we were doing what was best. We thought…" Connie sighed. "We were stupid and delusional, and we thought if we removed the thing that most triggered the symptoms, you'd get better, and…I'm sorry."

"Thank you," Cassandra said. Delicately and honestly, she added, "I'm not sorry I left."

"I know," Connie sighed. "That's just something I'm going to have to deal with moving forward."

"Moving forward?" Cassandra asked.

"I know you'll have to go home in a few days, but when you do, I would like you to come back sometime. Soon," Connie said.

"Really?" Cassandra asked.

"I've missed too much," Connie said, regretfully. "If you ever have surgery again, I want to be there. If you…decide to get married someday, I'd like to be there."

"Well, what if I marry Marcie?" Cassandra asked. "I could do that now, you know."

" _Cassandra_ ," Connie sighed. Cassandra simply cackled in response, her bait having earned her exactly the reaction she had been going for. Connie's exasperation turned into a glare, and one more snicker escaped Cassandra's lips before she silenced. Connie sat down on the bed next to her and, with a slight roll of her eyes, said, "Even if you marry Marcie."

"You're serious," Cassandra realized.

"I lost you once," Connie said. "I don't want to lose you again." Cassandra smiled softly and looked down at her hands again. With a deep breath, Connie asked, "Did your father know the tumor's gone?"

Bracing herself for another argument, Cassandra whispered, "Yes."

With a simple sigh of relief, the exact opposite reaction Cassandra was anticipating, Connie stood up, grabbed her husband's car keys from the dresser, and dropped them into Cassandra's hands. "Go find your friend. Take your father's car. Hell, you can have it, if you want. We can have it sent to Portland. It's probably nicer than whatever you're driving." She paused for a moment, thinking about how what she'd just said might come off, and added, "That wasn't meant to be a dig at you. I just meant…"

"I know," Cassandra said. She looked at the keys Connie put in her hands and said, "But I don't think I really need a BMW, Mom."

"Alright," Connie said with a shrug. She took the keys out of Cassandra's hands again. "I guess I'll just sell it, then."

" _Wait_!" Cassandra called. Connie turned around to find her daughter looking rather embarrassed on her bed. She smiled knowingly and held out the keys again. Cassandra took them sheepishly, cupping them in her hands.

"You'll come back tonight?" Connie asked.

"Yes," Cassandra promised.

"Maybe we can talk?" Connie asked. "About…things that I've missed."

With a small smile, Cassandra stood from the bed. As she headed towards the door, she grabbed her mother's arm and leaned in to kiss her cheek, her own little way of saying that if Connie was willing to work on their relationship, she was, too.

* * *

 _Only one more update on this story to go! Thanks for the reviews so far :)_


	10. Epilogue

Cassandra burst out laughing as she parked the BMW on the side of the road in the Stars Hollow town square. She'd spotted Stone right away upon her arrival and found him right in the middle of Firelight Festival preparations, wearing a hard hat, holding a walkie talkie, and telling a group of guys around him what to do. That wasn't what she'd had in mind when she told him to have fun, but she was glad to see he'd been able to keep himself busy while she was away. She climbed out of the car, making sure it was locked after she slammed the door, and spotted Lorelai headed down the sidewalk. Cassandra waved, and Lorelai picked up speed a little.

" _Hey_ ," Lorelai said, wrapping her arm around Cassandra's back. "Wow, nice car."

"Hey," Cassandra replied. She pointed towards the gazebo and asked, "What's going on over there? Why is Stone seemingly running the Firelight Festival?"

"Oh, well, we had an emergency town meeting this afternoon and voted him the new town selectman. Taylor's just been in power way too long, and the people wanted change, damn it!" Lorelai teased. She let go of Cassandra to throw her fist into the air for dramatic emphasis. Cassandra looked at Lorelai with wide eyes and a hint of alarm, and Lorelai laughed. "I'm kidding," she said.

" _Oh_ ," Cassandra said with a laugh of her own. "What does it say about this town that I wasn't sure if you were kidding or not?"

"That it's _crazy_ ," Lorelai said lovingly.

"I miss it sometimes, though," Cassandra revealed.

"You do?" Lorelai asked. Cassandra smiled and closed her eyes, nodding in affirmation. "Well, I would tell you to come around more often, but Portland is _far_."

"Yeah," Cassandra said. "But I might be coming around more often anyway."

Lorelai shot her an exaggerated grin; Cassandra returned the expression with a bit of a hopeful smile, and Lorelai, in an almost sing-song voice, said, "Well, look at that…"

"So serious answer, please," Cassandra said, getting back to her original question.

Lorelai chuckled. "We were headed to the Dragonfly's annex; there was an accident right in front of us, and Mr. Safety Man over there swooped in and saved the day."

"So the town got him," Cassandra concluded.

"Happens to the best of us," Lorelai said.

"So um…maybe you can tell me," Cassandra said, switching topics. "Why did Jackson stop me on one of the streets into the square and ask me who the hot, young, foreign guy in my polyamorous relationship with Jacob is?"

"Oh my god," Lorelai said, bursting out into laughter.

" _What_ is that about?" Cassandra asked.

"I guess there was a couple in town yesterday – tourists or something – and I guess one of the guys looked like Jacob, and Babette and Miss Patty thought he _was_ Jacob, so…" Lorelai explained, letting Cassandra figure out the rest.

" _Oh no_ ," Cassandra groaned.

"But I hadn't heard the version that involved you," Lorelai said. "That's a new one. Polyamory…so _scandalous_ for Stars Hollow!"

"This town is _crazy_ ," Cassandra sighed.

"And you miss us," Lorelai said.

"So what does that say about _me_?" Cassandra wondered.

"That _you're_ crazy," Lorelai teased.

Cassandra pointed towards the square again. "I'm gonna go…"

"Rescue one of your boyfriends?" Lorelai said. Cassandra shot her a deathly glare. Lorelai chuckled. "I'll see you later."

Cassandra left a still-giggling Lorelai on the sidewalk and ran across the street. She walked up behind Stone and tapped his shoulder lightly.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning around. When he saw that it was Cassandra trying to get his attention, he said, "Oh, hey."

"Hey yourself," Cassandra said with a wickedly amused grin. "So what's going on here?"

"I'm helpin' with the prep for this Firelight thing," Stone said.

"But you have the walkie talkie with the little gold star on it, so it looks like you're _running_ the prep for this Firelight thing," Cassandra pointed out.

"I…I'm just helpin' out," Stone insisted.

"Mm-hmm…" Cassandra nodded. "How'd you get that out of Kirk's hands?"

"It hit the grass when one of the stars fell and hit Kirk's arm," Stone said. Cassandra gasped. "He decided to hand over the walkie talkie in favor of telling everyone who passes by about his near-death experience. He's bein' more dramatic than Flynn."

"And I bet they're all eating it up," Cassandra said seriously.

"There was even a debate about whether the injury was enough to warrant cancellin' this thing," Stone said. "This town is nuts."

"Oklahoma doesn't look so bad to you now, huh?" Cassandra asked.

"No, it don't," Stone muttered.

"Well, you know, as someone who also became a Stars Hollow townie overnight, I understand how this place can kind of suck you in," she said.

"I'm _not_ a Stars Hollow townie," Stone said. At that, a voice came through the walkie talkie, informing Stone that one of the set-up helpers was stuck in a tree after climbing up there to string up some twinkly lights. Cassandra snickered as Stone promised to be right there. He looked at Cassandra laughing and growled, "What?"

"You're going to have an awfully long commute if we can't find a safe place to hook up the Back Door," she teased.

A glare in her direction sent her into another small fit of giggles, and Stone said, "Speakin' of commutes, did you drive up in a BMW?" Cassandra nodded. "Dad's car?"

" _My_ car," she said gleefully. "I wonder if we could get a car through the Back Door? That would make getting it home so much easier."

"How are you gonna get it out of the Annex?" Stone asked. With one finger raised between them, Cassandra opened her mouth immediately to reply, and Stone beat her to it, saying, " _Do not_ say magic."

Cassandra face deflated, and before she could argue back, Stone wandered off to help the Stars Hollow resident out of the tree. Cassandra breathed in the cool air and headed for the gazebo in the center of the square. She passed Kirk along the way, just as he was losing his latest captive audience.

"Cassandra," Kirk said, holding up his overly bandaged hand. "Did you hear how I almost died this morning?"

"Sure did, Kirk," Cassandra smiled.

"Oh," Kirk said with disappointment. "Would you like to hear my account of events?"

"Maybe later, Kirk," Cassandra promised.

Luckily, Kirk's attention was pulled away from Cassandra as Gypsy, the town's car mechanic, walked by on her way back to her shop.

"Gypsy!" Kirk called. "Did you hear about the Firelight star that almost killed me this afternoon?"

"Almost?" Gypsy asked, never slowing down. "What a shame."

Cassandra snickered again and climbed the steps to the gazebo. She let herself fall against one of the pillars, looking out over the town and the festival preparations. Stone found her just a few minutes later, disgruntled and frustrated with the guy who'd gotten stuck in the tree, and Cassandra tried not to laugh too hard at his expense.

"I think I'm gonna be caught up in this for a while," Stone admitted.

"That's fine," Cassandra said. She looked fondly around the town again and repeated, "I'm fine."

* * *

That evening, as the festival was in full swing, Stone and Cassandra sat on a bench off to the side of the gazebo, watching and waiting as the town leaders argued about whose responsibility it was to bring the supplies to start the bonfire. Cassandra had a hand over her mouth, stifling the giggles she couldn't quite stop, and Stone looked on in disbelief.

"This thing happens every year, right?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm…" Cassandra nodded.

"And _this_ happens every year?" he asked. Cassandra simply nodded again. "And people think it's funny and not annoyin'?"

"It's kind of just part of the festival at this point," she told him.

"I'm so ready to go home," he muttered, causing Cassandra to laugh again.

"So did I miss anything good the last day or so?" Cassandra asked. "Other than Stars Hollow trying to claim you as their own, that is?"

"Ezekiel was here," Stone said.

"What?" Cassandra asked.

"He was hidin' from Baird and tracked our phones," Stone explained. "You had already left, but I caught him trying to steal from that antique store over there."

"He was trying to steal from Mrs. Kim?" Cassandra asked. Stone nodded. "Well, that was stupid."

"Oh, he definitely made an impression," Stone said, deciding to withhold information about their run-in with Babette and Miss Patty. With any luck, she'd never hear about that; Stone knew that was probably wishful thinking.

"Ezekiel Jones tends to do that," Cassandra replied. "Wait, were you guys walking around town together?"

"Yeah," Stone asked. "Why?"

"Oh, that makes sense now…" Cassandra muttered to herself.

Stone groaned. "You heard about the gossip, didn't you?"

"Sorry," Cassandra said with an apologetic smile. Her face fell a little, and she added, "And I'm sorry I kind of abandoned you."

"You didn't…" Stone started.

"I should've called," Cassandra said. "I felt like I should be there for Mom, and…I was afraid if I came back for another night, especially when I was that emotional, things between us might get out of hand."

"It's okay, Cass," Stone said.

"And I'm sorry I called it a mistake. It wasn't; it was exactly what I needed in the moment, and…I didn't handle any of that very well," she finished.

"Hey," Stone said. "It's okay. I understand."

She smiled softly. "Really?"

"Really," he promised.

A silence hung in the air between them, the sounds of bickering in the distance, before Cassandra awkwardly added, "You're a good kisser, by the way."

Stone put on a prideful grin and said, "Thank you. You're not so bad yourself."

Cassandra laughed lightly and said, "Our little secret?"

"Sounds good," he agreed. "So you been back a few hours now, and I just realized I haven't asked you how you're doing."

Cassandra took a deep breath as a lost little girl look momentarily colored her face. "I miss him," she admitted. "I miss how we used to be. It wasn't always bad. And running away wasn't something I was waiting to grow up and get to, you know? It wouldn't have happened if _this_ ," She tapped the side of her head. "Hadn't have happened. I liked my life and the plans they had for me before…"

"I know," Stone said softly.

"So I've always missed them, but there's a finality there now that wasn't there before," she said. Silence lingered between them for a few more minutes as Cassandra stared at her hands, lost in thought. Finally, she picked her up back up and looked at Stone with a small smile. "But I might get Mom back."

"Really?" Stone asked with surprise.

"It's not going to be easy, and it's probably going to be weird, but…yeah, maybe," Cassandra smiled.

Before Stone could say anything in response, Ezekiel Jones plopped down between them on the bench, pulling startled looks from both of his friends.

"So when is this bonfire actually going to start?" Ezekiel groaned.

"What are you doing here?" Cassandra asked.

"I was telling Baird and Flynn about this place, and they wanted to check out the festival," Ezekiel said. He used his hand to indicate direction as he said, "They're all cuddly over by the big pile of wood, and Jenkins is over there mesmerized by the star-shaped hot dogs."

"Oh, Jenkins is here?" Cassandra said. She hopped to her feet.

"Where are you going?" Ezekiel asked.

"I cannot be seen alone with the two of you at this event," Cassandra said, remembering the earlier gossip she heard from Jackson. "That is not happening."

"What's with her?" Ezekiel asked as she scurried away to find the caretaker. Stone simply scowled at him in response.

* * *

"Oh no," Cassandra gasped as she spotted Jenkins near the food vendors. Lorelai was standing with him, all smiles. She was waving her fingers in a way that made Cassandra know she was asking him about magic. She hurried over to the pair.

"But it's probably quite a change from _Camelot_ , am I right?" Lorelai joked with a slight giggle. With a perplexed look on his face, Jenkins opened his mouth to answer her, but before he could say anything, Cassandra had reached them. She looped her arms around the knight's.

"Come watch the fire with me?" she asked with a grin.

"It would be my honor, Miss Cillian," Jenkins said. He turned to his conversational companion and said, "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lorelai."

"Say hi to Arthur for me," Lorelai replied.

Cassandra quickly turned Jenkins away from her, leading him to the area where everyone was gathering around what would eventually become the bonfire.

"Cassandra…why does Lorelai know what she knows?" Jenkins asked.

With a deep roll of her eyes, Cassandra replied, "I can explain; I promise."

Lorelai turned around after Cassandra and Jenkins left her, deciding to head to the diner and drag her reluctant husband out to partake in the festivities. Before she could make it across the street, Rory ran up by Lorelai's side.

"Hey, Mom," Rory said, startling Lorelai.

"Rory," Lorelai said, giving her daughter a quick side hug. "Did I screw up? I thought you got in in a few hours?"

"Yeah, I took an earlier flight," Rory shrugged. "You did not screw up."

"So how did you get home from the airport?" Lorelai asked.

"Uber," Rory said.

" _No_ ," Lorelai whined, making the word at least four syllables long.

"I had the car drop me off half a mile away from the house," Rory said. "If Kirk spotted an Uber car, he'll never be able to tie it to me."

"Oh," Lorelai said, frowning. "Well, now I feel bad."

"Don't," Rory said. "I've been on a plane for hours. Walking felt good."

"So how did things go?" Lorelai asked. "I'm guessing badly since you're back early?"

"I don't really want to talk about that right now," Rory said, awkwardly pulling her sleeves over her hands. "I see I haven't missed the bonfire."

"We're still twenty minutes away, easy," Lorelai asserted.

Rory began looking around the town square, her eyes settling on Stone and Ezekiel on the bench across the way. "Who's that?"

"Who?" Lorelai asked.

"The guy dressed like Luke and the Asian guy frowning at him?" Rory asked.

Lorelai gasped. "There _is_ a hot, young, foreign guy!"

"What?" Rory asked.

"Nothing," Lorelai shrugged. "I'll tell you later."

Cassandra and Jenkins made their way over to the men on the bench, Cassandra remaining firmly on Jenkins's arm, and Rory frowned again.

"And who's that?" she asked. "That girl looks kind of familiar. Do we know her?"

"Oh yeah," Lorelai said with a chuckle.

"What's going on?" Rory asked.

Lorelai wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulders, gently turning her around and steering her towards Luke's. "Well…I definitely wasn't bored while you were gone."

* * *

 _We have unfortunately reached the end of this story, and I'm so sad it's over! This was an idea-in-progress for so long that it's weird to me that it's over, but I'm so glad I got it to work, and I'm so glad some of you have enjoyed it as much as you've told me you have. And, of course, I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on the ending or the story as a whole._

 _Thanks for reading!_


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